We Now Know the Fate of Crossroads Mall in Waite Park

For a few years now, we have all noticed that stores have been pulling out of Crossroads mall.  If you have been there recently you have also probably noticed that one half of the mall is almost completely empty.  And we have heard about the looming giant payment of about 84 million dollars that had not been paid.  The last payment that was maid was in August of 2020.

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You could blame the pandemic for this situation, but hearing from managers of some stores that have made the decision to putll out of the mall, it was said the reason for that wasn't that they had a lack of business, but rather that the rent was entirely too high.  That prompts the question - if the rent was going up and up, why wasn't the mortgage payments being made?  Where was that money going?

A few months ago, we learned that a holding company had taken over the mall's lease.  There were some changes that were made when that happened, one of which was a change to the mall's website.  That seemed to be a very postive change as it is now very user friendly, with employment, leasing options and events that were happenng all laid out.

Last week, a Stearns County judge has approved the sale of the mall to a company out of Delaware.  This was reported by the twin cities Star/Tribune.

Stearns County Judge Laura Moehrle issued an order appointing Trigild, a commercial real estate company, as the receiver to "take possession of and protect the property" and "manage and operate the same and collect rents and any other income generated," court documents state. Moehrle's order approving the sale was entered into the court system on Jan. 19. The case is now listed as closed.

The logical idea would be that now, to try and fill the open spaces in the mall.  And the other logical idea would be to lower the rent so that you can fill those spaces.  That would make sense to have more stores so that the rent is affordable to all and the mall can operate to full capacity again.

There are people who say that no one is going to the mall anymore.  If you happened to go there during the holidays or during back to school, you would see that is not necessarily the case.  There are, however, many improvements that do need to be made - one of which is repairs to the parking lot.

As far as what will happen with the addition of any stores within the mall remains to be seen.