The Northgate Mall, Lafayette’s oldest shopping mall, is up for sale.
The 250,000-square-foot, 20.8-acre site has been listed for $3.75 million and has been on the market for about two months, said Barry Spizer, chief executive officer and managing partner of SRSA, which manages the property.
A sale of the building, which has been mentioned in recent years as a possible site for redevelopment, could alter the building’s future. Under a new owner, the mall could continue as a retail center or be utilized for warehouse distribution, entertainment or medical use, the listing indicated.
Or it could be demolished and converted into “20 acres of prime land,” it indicated.
The move comes after the mall’s current owners, former Brothers Food Mart owners Imad “Eddie” Hamdan and his brother-in law, Ziad “Z” Mousa, sold their popular convenience store chain three years ago for an undisclosed amount, records show.
The two bought the mall in 2015 from a New York-based real estate company for $2.1 million, records show. The mall is in need of upgrades and the owners are not in a position to do it, Spizer said.
“They’re investors but not developers,” he said. “They’re not the ones who can take this to the next step now. If they’re not going to do that, then it’s going to be better for north Lafayette for them to sell and for someone to come along who will do that.”
The mall, which has lost its latest anchors in recent years, continues to be a popular spot for minority-owned start-up businesses, manager Lisa Champagne said.
If a buyer would want to demolish the building, there would still be time before that would happen, Spizer said. Normally, he noted, buyers keep the existing tenants and renovate the center or bring in some anchor tenants.
The mall has had some offers, he said, but they were too low to be considered. There were also talks with the City of Lafayette over the space, he said.
In recent years the mall was mentioned as possible locations for large projects such as the Amazon distribution center that opened in Carencro and the performing arts center that is scheduled to be built next to Cajun Field. One private group even pitched a contest for ideas to redesign the mall.
The mall dates back to 1963 when investors Ison Fontenot, Dr. Daniel Voorheis and Joseph Angelle first filed documents to form what was legally known as Northgate Shopping City, court records show. It opened in 1969.
Now the mall sits inside an economic development district that collects a 1% sales tax and a 2% hotel/motel tax and along what will eventually be Interstate 49.
“Whether it’s private investors who come to the table or the city themselves or some developer, I think the city would be extremely cooperative and helpful,” Spizer said. “I think they’ll get a lot of cooperation to try and rejuvenate that part of town.”
FOR MORE: Remember when Northgate Mall was the place to be? Check out these photos from the 1990s