Northridge Mall's prospective buyer walks away after failing to reach agreement with city

They should have just let Penzeys buy it, back when it was worth something.

From the article:

Northridge Mall’s prospective buyer Phoenix Investors said it terminated its purchase contract Thursday because Milwaukee officials will not drop their raze order for the company’s planned industrial redevelopment.

Frank Crivello, founder and chairman of Phoenix Investors, said Mayor Cavalier Johnson’s administration refused to drop the city’s demolition order against the building. He called it “a problem I can’t overcome.”

“We respect his (Johnson’s) position, I have no choice but to respect it, and because of that, we are not interested in spending more time and energy,” Crivello said Friday in an interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal. “We will not be re-engaging.”

Phoenix Investors is a Milwaukee-based real estate firm focused on industrial redevelopments. It emerged in March as a prospective buyer for the 900,000-square-foot, long-vacant mall with plans to convert it into industrial space that could be leased to other businesses.

Milwaukee officials from the start declined to support the company’s plan to convert the building into warehousing, instead favoring a redevelopment that would create “meaningful job growth.”

City attorneys this year have separately sought court approval to take ownership of the mall from its current owner, Chinese investor U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group Inc. City attorneys have said they are raising money that could be used to finance the demolition of the mall, which could cost anywhere from $5 million to $15 million according to different estimates, if U.S. Black Spruce refused to do so.

The city’s demolition order issued in 2019 is currently in effect, but has been challenged by a filing in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals by Northridge owner U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group. If the demolition order is upheld, the building could not be redeveloped unless city officials decide to drop the order.