Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights to permanently close July 1

https://www.freep.com/gcdn/authoring...pjpg&auto=webp
It's the final countdown for long-struggling Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights.

Lakeside's owner plans to announce Wednesday that it will permanently close the shopping mall on July 1.

Plans then call for demolishing the 1.5 million-square-foot enclosed mall that was built in the 1970s. And by late 2025, a groundbreaking is expected for a $1 billion-plus redevelopment plan for the 110-acre site: Lakeside Town Center, a town-square-type project with apartments, new retail, restaurants, offices, a hotel and public recreation space. The existing Macy's and J.C. Penney department stores at the mall are to stay open and help anchor the future development. The former Sears and Lord & Taylor stores also will remain standing — at least for now.

Quote:

---

“While the current mall itself is in a state of decline and there’s more and more vacancies, the area around Lakeside Mall is thriving," Sterling Heights City Manager Mark Vanderpool told the Free Press on Tuesday. “That area right there at M-59 and Schoenherr is one of the most vibrant areas in the region, and everyone is greatly anticipating this project coming forward.”
The Taubman-built Lakeside Mall opened in 1976 and was once known for its luxury retailers. It was expanded in 1990 and last renovated in 2007. But Lakeside experienced an exodus of tenants in recent years amid the rise of online shopping and the 2007 opening of The Mall at Partridge Creek, a nearby open-air center in Clinton Township. Out of the Box Ventures, a subsidiary of Miami-based investment firm Lionheart Capital, bought the mall for $26.5 million in late 2019. Lionheart Capital will be developing the new Lakeside Town Center; the project was first announced in 2022. Today, occupancy inside Lakeside Mall is down to about 20%, said Lionheart Capital's Chief Development Officer Allison Greenfield.


“The writing is obviously on the wall," Greenfield said. "If you go almost any day of the week, it’s pretty vacant.”


Lionheart intends to apply within the next year for a special development incentive, known as a Transformational Brownfield, to help finance the ambitious redevelopment.

---

https://www.freep.com/story/money/bu...y/73510484007/

Good to see. The market for large shopping malls has consolidated to where there basically three remain in the Metro Detroit Area: Somerset Collection, Twelve Oaks and Great Lakes Crossing.

The area around Lakeside is still booming. Drive down Hall Road on a Saturday afternoon and the roads are busy and the parking lots for the shopping centers and restaurants are jam packed. Re-developing Lakeside will fill in this area nicely and by adding density, can hopefully prevent additional sprawl.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sirrealone

Good to see. The market for large shopping malls has consolidated to where there basically three remain in the Metro Detroit Area: Somerset Collection, Twelve Oaks and Great Lakes Crossing.

The area around Lakeside is still booming. Drive down Hall Road on a Saturday afternoon and the roads are busy and the parking lots for the shopping centers and restaurants are jam packed. Re-developing Lakeside will fill in this area nicely and by adding density, can hopefully prevent additional sprawl.

---

"Booming" [[which implies the area is experiencing high growth) isn't the word I would use.

But yes, the Hall Road corridor is solidly affluent and quite vibrant in spite of Lakeside Mall's struggles.

Minus my nostalgia for hanging at the mall in my teens, I'm glad to see this is happening. As a local resident who uses Hall road daily, it will be great to see that hulking sea of dilapidated parking lots turned into this vision.

However, navigating that congestion clogged nightmare, no matter if at 8am or 8 pm, all I can think about is how much worse my commute will be with the added residential. I try to avoid it as much as possible, but the only other viable East/West options are 16 or 23 Mile, and those aren't any better. The ball got dropped 3 decades ago when Hall road expanded from Van Dyke to 94. It should have been a continuation of the freeway portion from Oakland County all the way to 94 with 2-3 lane service drives for all the retail along the corridor. I believe there were some discussions on that happening prior to the road expanding but I believe it was shot down or politics got in the way.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sirrealone

Good to see. The market for large shopping malls has consolidated to where there basically three remain in the Metro Detroit Area: Somerset Collection, Twelve Oaks and Great Lakes Crossing.

The area around Lakeside is still booming. Drive down Hall Road on a Saturday afternoon and the roads are busy and the parking lots for the shopping centers and restaurants are jam packed. Re-developing Lakeside will fill in this area nicely and by adding density, can hopefully prevent additional sprawl.

---

How is Oakland Mall faring? I haven't been since just before covid, about 5 yrs ago. It was starting to decline then.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 401don

How is Oakland Mall faring? I haven't been since just before covid, about 5 yrs ago. It was starting to decline then.

---

It started to decline long before that. I don't go to malls very often, but last time I was there there was still a fair amount of stuff.

This might interest you:
https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/...mall-thinks-so

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 401don

How is Oakland Mall faring? I haven't been since just before covid, about 5 yrs ago. It was starting to decline then.

---

It was declining back then, but is making a bit of a rebound. I visited there over the winter and it was pretty busy, and there were plenty of new stores that had opened or are opening. It took a hit loosing Sears, but it looks like all of the old Sears space has been repurposed and is in use.

There are still plenty of empty storefronts, but there were fewer than when I was there before the pandemic, which is a good sign.

I'm a little concerned that people are taking this developer a little too much at their word. You always see Sterling Heights officials touting the massive project, but not so much the developer. I sure hope this project comes to fruition and doesn't turn into a boondoggle. Its such a big project on a big chunk of land - going to take a very skilled developer to pull this off.

1953

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 401don

How is Oakland Mall faring? I haven't been since just before covid, about 5 yrs ago. It was starting to decline then.

---

Interesting enough, you want to see a mall that made a complete 180 and was circling the toilet like Lakeside? Visit Macomb Mall. That place completely reinvented itself and should be the posterchild for adaptive reuse. It's footprint is slightly smaller then Lakeside but still, great to see that rebound the way it did in the past 10 years or so.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sirrealone

Good to see. The market for large shopping malls has consolidated to where there basically three remain in the Metro Detroit Area: Somerset Collection, Twelve Oaks and Great Lakes Crossing.

---

Fairlane is still up & running.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jackie5275

Fairlane is still up & running.

---

So is Partridge Creek Mall, Laura Park Mall, Westland Mall, Southland Mall, Oakland and Macomb Mall and of course Briarwood Mall.

Adieu Lakeside Mall. Thanks for 48 years of service. If wasn't for Taubman's Plan's 20 Mile Rd. [[ Hall Stroad ) Will be just a dirt road in a hick town.

This boggles my mind. Right before or just after the build started back when I used to run my Labrador to train for birds there. '72 or 73?

If I was still up there I would be bereft without my regular runs to Godiva's for rocher. ;)

We lived in Almont back then and prior to 1975 we had to run to Oakland, Macomb or down to Mt Clemens to shop. All my wedding stuff was a huge distance to find. After our kids were born, Lakeside was a god send for clothing, toys, Christmas and Easter pics. My teen daughters used to go there for homecoming dresses and even business suits for college. It started to detiorated about the time Macy's came in and we just quit going there. Would rather drive to Somerset for the important things. Sears paint and automotive had been the benchmark for good products, but then it went south too. Hope it will work out when the redo it. Oh, and Chi Chi's was once a week dinner until it was no more.

We were at the mall the first day it opened and watched it being constructed. It was surrounded by farmland back then. The mall was packed and you couldn't find a parking spot during Christmas time.

Teenagers killed the mall. At first it was because there were too many of them hanging out at the malls, fighting and chasing off older customers and families with young children. Secondly, it was because they started socializing on the internet, and stopped hanging out at the mall. Hell, I don't know why malls died. I was just at Twelve Oaks on Saturday and it was packed. It was like Christmas. Didn't know folks buy stuff for their mommas. I thought they just took momma out to dinner for Mother's Day.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 1953

You always see Sterling Heights officials touting the massive project, but not so much the developer.

---

Lionheart is a private equity company, they don't care about advertising. Also, I don't think anyone has committed to anything yet, as not all the property has been acquired.

I had to stop at Total Wine over there Monday and they have big signage up touting the development went you pull into Lakeside Circle. Then again, I think we have all seen that a time or 2 around here....:rolleyes: