As Sears Holdings Corp. works through a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, a “for sale” sign is posted at the closed Sears store at Regency Square Mall.
The Avison Young commercial real estate services firm put up the sign on the property at 9501 Arlington Expressway in the Regency area of Arlington: “155,928 sf Vacant Store Former Sears.”
Shown as the contacts are Miami-based Joshua Ladle, senior associate in Avison Young’s capital markets group consulting and advisory retail, and Brian C. de la Fe.
According to Avison Young, it got the listing in December. The property has been closed for almost three years.
Chicago-based Sears Holdings Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization Oct. 15 and has been marketing properties, although the closed Regency store has been for sale for years.
Sears, Roebuck and Co. owns the store at the 52-year-old Arlington mall. The company built the two-story department store in 1981 to anchor the new west wing of Regency and closed the location July 17, 2016.
Cushman & Wakefield has been exclusively listing the property for $4.5 million. It is assessed at $3.6 million by the Duval County Property Appraiser.
Cushman & Wakefield said it cannot comment about the listing.
CoStar.com reported Dec. 11 that Sears Holdings hired the Jones Lang LaSalle real estate company to solicit bids for Sears and Kmart assets as a counter to a bid by Chairman Eddie Lampert.
JLL is advising Sears Holdings on all its owned or leased property and other property assets, according to filings tied to the bankruptcy petition.
JLL has hired several firms. Avison Young has the listing on the Regency Sears store.
It is not Avison Young’s only Sears listing. In September, Avison Young’s Florida Capital Markets Group announced it was exclusively retained by Sears to market and sell three department store sites in Daytona, Tampa and New Port Richey and the Ocala distribution center, totaling more than 2.35 million square feet of space.
Interest in space
There has been interest in the closed Jacksonville store. In October 2017, a prospective buyer began marketing the closed Regency Sears for auto dealerships and other uses. A marketing flyer said the two-story, 196,214-square-foot Sears building has 12 acres that can be subdivided. That deal did not close.
The store square footage is more than Arison Young’s sign indicates.
Sears continues to operate stores at The Avenues mall on Jacksonville’s Southside and at the Orange Park Mall. Sears also owns its Orange Park store and auto center, built in 1975.
Avison Young is not listing any other area Sears stores for sale.
Sears struggles
Sears has been struggling financially for years.
Locally, Sears Holdings Corp. closed its area Kmart stores and intends to close its North Jacksonville distribution center in April. It sold the almost 750,000-square-foot warehouse at 1 Imeson Park Blvd. last year but continues to lease the facility, which distributes merchandise to Sears and Kmart stores. That work will be transferred to an Ocala warehouse.
The bankruptcy proceedings are keeping the Sears operations in flux.
Lampert has offered to buy the company, averting immediate liquidation and keeping up to 400 stores open. However, unsecured creditors oppose the sale and want the company to liquidate.
The next hearing in the bankruptcy case is scheduled Monday. The case is in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of New York.
Sears was a mainstay of the retail landscape but suffered from competition and other factors. Bloomberg Businessweek reported that 3,900 Sears and Kmart stores operated at the end of 2009.
CNBC.com reported Jan. 16 that Sears operated about 700 stores and had more than $7 billion in assets when it filed for bankruptcy, since shrinking to a little more than 400 stores.
Sears suffered from the rise of Amazon, powerful retailers like Walmart and Target, a lack of investment in its stores and legacy costs, including pensions, the news site said.
If the Regency store sells, it will affect the largely vacant 1.4 million-square-foot Regency Square Mall, whose remaining anchors are J.C. Penney and a Dillard’s clearance center. Dillard’s also owns its building.
A New York investment group bought Regency Square Mall five years ago and consolidated the retail stores into the east side of the mall, anchored by J.C. Penney, while it sought other uses for the west wing.
In August 2016, Impact Church of Jacksonville Inc. bought the former Belk store that linked the east and west wings but has not moved into the space.
Other than Dillard’s, the west wing of the mall remains vacant.