If the owners of Steeplegate Mall decide it no longer makes economic sense to keep the 32-year-old structure operating as a mall then they have a lot of options, including tearing it down and starting over.
“I find it hard to believe there’s a scenario that doesn’t involve a reconfiguration of that mall property,” said Deputy City Manager Carlos Baia. “It was laid out for a certain purpose, and depending on what another developer wants to do … that design might not work.”
It doesn’t seem like the mall’s owner, Namdar Realty Trust of New York, has any immediate plans to tear down or add onto the 480,000-square-foot mall, since it is letting stores with external entrances stay put even as they eject a half-dozen stores inside to make room for what it calls “an exciting potential project.” But they certainly could.
The mall’s 50-acre site is in a Gateway Performance Districts, a type of city zoning that allows housing, retail or commercial use, or a mix of those. This means many options for changing away from just a collection of stores would not have to go through the difficult process of getting a zoning variance.
New development would have to abide by numerous parameters and limitations in the Gateway Performance District – it can’t be entirely residential, for example – and would have to go through major site plan review with the planning department and planning board, including public hearings. But in general, the sky’s the limit.
Baia said the city has long hoped that the property could become mixed-use with some retail as well as some housing.
“Housing is a big element that’s needed. It’s tough for people to find a place to live in Concord,” he said.
Closed or dying malls all over the country have been repurposed for many things, from schools and farmers’ markets to senior housing. Amazon has been buying dead malls, including one in Worcester, Mass., and turning them into distribution centers for its online shopping business.
Even before Namdar Realty Group of New York bought Steeplegate Mall in 2016, the mall was trying to move past retail. When Hatbox Theatre opened in 2015, an industry consultant told the Monitor that this was apparently the first live theater to take up residence in an enclosed mall. Turning part of the former Bon-Ton into the Capitol City Charter School in 2018 was an even more audacious move, although financial problems ended that experiment in a year.
Namdar owns 59 malls around the country as well as many other commercial properties. It is generally an owner of existing properties rather than a developer that builds new structures or businesses.
