Torchlight Investors taps JLL to market Lincolnwood mall

The loan servicer that foreclosed on a Lincolnwood mall has listed the property a little more than a year after taking ownership.

Torchlight Investors hired JLL to shop the 423,000-square-foot Lincolnwood Town Center in the northern Chicago suburb, Crain’s reported. The firm took over the property in August 2021 after filing a $48.9 million foreclosure suit.

The property could sell for as little as $30 million, which will be a loss for Torchlight as the property carries about $49 million in debt. Its appraised value also dropped significantly to $15.2 million in May of this year. The mall was appraised at $89.1 million in 2014.

The shopping center is located at the corner of McCormick Boulevard and Touhy Avenue and like so many other similar businesses, was rocked by the pandemic. One of its anchor tenants, Carson’s, closed in 2018. RoomPlace took over the 84,000 square-foot space in 2019, but has been unable to match the income of its predecessor.

Its other anchor tenant is Kohl’s, which occupies 102,000 square feet.

The mall’s previous owners, Washington Prime Group, stopped making payments on the property’s loan in early 2021 and filed for bankruptcy months later.

The mall is 81 percent occupied and JLL is marketing it as a redevelopment opportunity. It sits on 31 acres and could be transformed into a 2 million-square-foot mixed-use development.

Shopping centers continue to struggle and regain their footing in the Chicago metro. In nearby Skokie, the Westfield Old Orchard outdoor shopping mall took its first big hit in August, when Bloomingdale’s announced plans to close its store there and open a smaller location.

Read more

Chicago

Schorsch unloads Forest View strip mall to a mystery buyer

— Victoria Pruitt