Towne West Square on the verge of possibly selling
The perpetually troubled Towne West Square mall is on the verge of possibly selling.
“I’m working on a deal,” said Mike Kohan, managing member of Kohan Retail Investment Group.
The Great Neck, N.Y., company purchased Towne West for $14 million in the summer of 2019.
Around lunchtime Friday, Kohan couldn’t immediately say who the new buyer would be but said to check back in a few hours for more details.
“I don’t know the name of them to be honest with you.”
At the time of his purchase of the mall, Kohan said, “I am looking forward to making the mall . . . a better place to be.”
Since then, though, Towne West has regularly lost tenants — not to mention power, too.
“So I think that the security deposit for this electric (utility) was a problem to begin with,” Kohan said.
“I did put money out of pocket, believe it or not. A lot,” Kohan said. “From my own pocket into the company.”
He said he reached a limit.
“A big part of it was that we had to come up with these payments, but nevertheless, it’s done. I think we should look forward to making . . . better deals.”
At the time Kohan purchased Towne West, his company had about 30 other malls. Now, he has about 60.
Over the years, he said he’s already sold some of his Towne West property in and around the mall.
“There’s quite a bit of parcels that we sold.”
Some stores, such as the Dillard’s outlet and JCPenney already owned their own properties.
Kohan said that since 2019, “the mall was . . . heading in a different direction — not the direction we wanted it.”
He said he’s not sure what the issue was, though he did say “the sales for these tenants declined throughout the years, and we couldn’t help it.”
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to bring new tenants in.”
Kohan said he was not misled when purchasing Towne West.
“We have our due diligence team . . . but you can’t control the market.”
Look for more information as it is available.
This story was originally published February 28, 2025 at 12:52 PM.