Ohio mall owner will sell its 10 Florida centers

Just months after putting WestShore Plaza in Tampa on the market, the Washington Prime Group has, or is near, putting its entire portfolio up for sale as it lays off employees at its corporate headquarters.

The property purge includes 10 malls and shopping centers in Florida, among them Edison Mall in Fort Myers along with Tampa’s WestShore Plaza.

In an email Thursday morning, a WPG spokesperson confirmed the company is selling off the assets in its portfolio writing that “about half of WPG’s properties sold in the past year, while the remainder of the portfolio is or will soon be on the market.”

The spokesperson says the strategy is “part of WPG’s multi-year journey” but did not give further details.

WPG owns 50 centers nationally according to its website.

According to the commercial real estate research company CoStar Group, “the malls are coming on the market at a critical loan repayment time, with WPG having nearly $1.1 billion in commercial mortgage-backed securities debt coming due between May and November.”

CoStar reports that the company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2021 and subsequently went private, has sold roughly $1 billion in properties in the past several years.

In addition to the sales, WPG filed a Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification notice in Ohio on April 2, alerting state officials that it was laying off 139 employees at its headquarters just outside of Columbus.

The spokesperson says the cuts are meant to “reflect the downsized organization.”

As for the local properties:

Edison Mall is a 1.05 million-square-foot enclosed center on Cleveland Avenue in Fort Myers. It’s anchors, according to the mall’s website, include Dillard’s and JCPenney. It opened in 1964.

WestShore Plaza is a 1.09 million-square-foot mall that counts AMC Theaters, P.F. Chang’s, Old Navy and JCPenney as tenants. Macy’s had been an anchor until March when it closed. The mall opened in 1967.

Last year, WPG won approval for mixed-use development on the property that will include retail, restaurants, offices, medical offices, a hotel and 1,700 multifamily units, as well as a Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority transfer station.

Sale prices were not immediately available for either property.