Fayette Mall’s parent company is unloading properties. One is in Kentucky
The owner of Lexington’s Fayette Mall defaulted on one of its loans and will return one of its Kentucky properties to its lenders to satisfy its debts, business records show.
CBL Properties intends to return Jefferson Mall in Louisville to its lenders, according to its fourth-quarter earnings filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Lexington’s Fayette Mall, also owned and managed by CBL, is not one of the identified three distressed properties the trust is planning to sell or transfer.
Operations will continue as normal at the Louisville shopping mall and timing of the property transfer is up to the lender, CBL Properties Vice President of Corporate Communications Stacey Keating said in an email to the Herald-Leader.
“The discussions with the lender regarding Jefferson Mall have absolutely no impact on Fayette Mall,” Keating said. “Fayette Mall continues to be owned and managed by CBL.”
The same filing details the Tennessee-based real estate investment trust was told the loan on the Louisville mall was in default — meaning it had failed to repay a debt — before the fourth quarter. According to the filing, the trust will return the property instead of repaying an almost $49 million loan.
Jefferson Mall has 73 stores in about 783,645 square feet, according to CBL, and has a Dillard’s JCPenney, H&M, Ross and Overstock Furniture & Mattress as its anchor stores. Fayette Mall is significantly larger, with 150 stores in nearly 1.16 million square feet. The Cheesecake Factory, Altar’d State, Dillard’s, Macy’s, Coach and Dick’s are some of the Lexington mall’s anchor tenants.
CBL also intends to return The Outlet Shoppes at Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and will “cooperate with the foreclosure or conveyance” of the Arbor Place mall in Douglasville, Georgia, according to the filing.
CoStar, a company that maintains a commercial real estate database, shows CBL has an owned-and-managed portfolio of 88 properties across 22 states totaling almost 54 million square feet. It includes 55 enclosed malls and 25 open-air centers.
In November 2020, CBL filed for bankruptcy as the coronavirus pandemic forced some of the malls in its portfolio to permanently close stores or delay paying rent. Operations at Fayette Mall were not anticipated to be affected by the filing.
Since the pandemic, the Fayette Mall Forever 21 store has closed, but Cavender’s Boot City has opened. New restaurants in and near the mall — Mileta and Ford’s Garage — have also opened.
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