The Westwood Mall in Marquette Township was among local sites inspected as a potential alternate health care location. (Journal file photo)

MARQUETTE — The Westwood Mall property in Marquette Township has been sold.

Marquette Township Planning and Zoning Administrator Jason McCarthy confirmed that the majority of the 30-acre property previously owned by EBL&S Property Management was sold to two different developers.

An investment group out of Great Neck, New York, purchased the main mall portion of the Westwood Plaza on Feb. 4, McCarthy said during a phone interview on Monday. And a second developer out of Philadelphia purchased the portion of the property comprised of Kohl’s, Applebee’s, Verizon and H&R Block. EBL&S Property Management has retained the Aspen Dental portion of the land, at least for now.

The main portion of the mall was purchased by Kohan Retail Investment Group, a company that buys shopping malls nationwide, 28 of them thus far, according to the company’s website, to “reinvent and redevelop” them, according to the firm’s owner Mike Kohan.

Kohan said during a phone interview Monday, that the Westwood Mall project is unique from his firm’s perspective because there are already new companies interested in taking up occupancy in the facility.

“We had a couple of interested tenants. I can’t give any names, though,” Kohan said. “But, usually when we buy these malls we don’t have that, and that’s a definite opportunity.”

Renovation or redevelopment plans will have to wait until Kohan has been able to collect information on mall structure, maintenance and anything else that requires attention.

“The closing happened pretty fast. We literally closed (the deal) within 25 to 30 days,” Kohan said. “We did not have the luxury of time to get those reports.”

Kohan’s company recently purchased two malls in the Lower Peninsula cities of Midland and Harper Woods. The two properties were in serious financial distress, according to a Jan. 27 Detroit Free Press article. The firm also owns a mall in Benton Harbor.

The Westwood Mall has been an area of concern for the township in recent years, in part, due to a consumer shift to online shopping, McCarthy said. Several national and regional retail chains have left the mall property in the last decade including J.C. Penney, Fashion Bug, MC Sports, Payless and most recently, Younkers.

McCarthy said the township will assist Kohan however it can, and officials are looking forward to sitting down with the new property owners in the coming weeks.

“There are a myriad of options, and our zoning ordinance is in great position to assist with the project. We want to convey the ‘Marquette factor,'” McCarthy said. “We are hopeful that the new owner will be able to provide the capital needed to pull these development schemes off.”

Kohan, for his part, cautioned that he is not a developer nor is his firm looking to bulldoze the mall and start over.

He will instead work with mall management to organize events to bring people in.

“I have a great deal of confidence that the current mall manager, who is a veteran — she has been doing this a long time, we can work together to make this happen,” Kohan said. “I am very excited to be part of the community.”

“We will try our best to make the mall a destination for a lot of shoppers and to get some of the traffic back.”