Metro Detroit malls are reinventing themselves heading into 2025

As Southeast Michigan’s remaining shopping malls emerge from a rollercoaster year, some have started to reimagine themselves — while others will continue to face challenges. 

As Americans continue to refine how and where they want to shop, trending away from malls that cropped up in suburbs across the country in the 20th Century, owners and operators have sought rethink the traditional enclosed shopping center.

For example, Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor is forfeiting some of its parking apron, about 6.2 acres of it, as Simon Property Group, based in Indianapolis, and Hines Interests LP, based in Houston, develop a new 370-unit apartment building. The effort is believed to be the first instance locally of a still-open mall relinquishing some of its surface parking to build new housing.

In Troy, Oakland Mall owner Mario Kiezi has brought in several new businesses with an Asian tilt to the property he purchased in 2022 at 14 Mile and John R roads. This spring, Kiezi said he was trying to capture “the Madison Heights energy going north,” referring to the neighboring city that is home to Asian businesses of all kinds along John R and elsewhere. It’s part of Kiezi’s effort to make Oakland Mall stand out from others, bringing unique and sometimes first-to-the-market concepts not located in its peer properties.

 

And while not quite as dramatic as the changes at Briarwood and Oakland, a long-vacant box at The Mall at Partridge Creek in Clinton Township may end up getting a Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. House of Sport location — which would be the first in the state — to replace the long vacant former Nordstrom Inc. department store.

But perhaps the most dramatic change of all is the closure over the summer of Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights, a staple in Macomb County for decades. Its owner, Out of the Box Ventures LLC, ultimately plans to raze it and build a $1 billion-plus mixed-use development with a few thousand apartments and other uses in what city officials are branding a type of town square project that would be a defining part of the city for decades to come.

Just earlier this week the Sterling Heights City Council signed off on a master development agreement for the project, which is expected to break ground in late 2025. Not expected as part of the redevelopment: 50-story skyscrapers (although zoning changes would allow for it). 

And construction continued on turning Northland Center in Southfield into one of the largest apartment complexes in the region — as well as the site of the state’s first Costco Business store.

In spite of those efforts around the region, there are still major challenges at others.

The new owners of Fairlane Town Center in Dearborn fell behind on property taxes earlier this year — a hallmark of its new ownership group around the country. Great Neck, N.Y.-based Kohan Retail Investment Group was late on $1.73 million in city property taxes across three separate parcels comprising the mall, and others reported that it faced utility shutoffs. Kohan paid $52 million for the mall in April 2023 after a brief ownership by Dallas-based Centennial Real Estate.

And in Taylor, Southland Center is on the verge of being sold after its owner defaulted on some $78.5 million in Barclays debt.

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