Simon puts Boynton Beach Mall up for sale

Simon Property Group is getting ready to sell the 26-year-old Boynton Beach Mall — the second Palm Beach County mall it will have unloaded within two years as shopper preferences shift further towards open-air retail centers and strip malls and away from the enclosed, regional mall model. The 1.1 million-square-foot Congress Avenue property has been facing competition in recent years from a slew of new stores, including a SuperTarget and a Best Buy across the street. Simon owns 589,886 square feet of that space, which is 94 percent leased, to tenants including Sears and JCPenney. Macy’s Cinemark Theaters and Dillard’s own their stores there. Local real estate professionals expect that either a new operator will pick up the property and try to turn it around, or a developer could buy it and repurpose the land. They estimated that it could fetch between $20 million and over $40 million. Simon shuttered the Palm Beach Mall on Palm Beach Lake Boulevard just over a year ago. Now it’s in the lender’s hands, and several investors are competing for a takeover. [Palm Beach Post]