Majority of Solomon Pond Mall sold for $8.5M

Big changes may be on the horizon for Marlborough’s Solomon Pond Mall, as a large portion of the site has been sold to an Ohio-based property redeveloper for $8.5 million as part of the mall’s receivership. The parcels were purchased by Industrial Commercial Properties, an Ohio-based firm which bought the last undeveloped part of Worcester’s CitySquare for $4.2 million in July. ICP did not immediately return a request for comment. The transaction included major components of the mall owned by Mall at Solomon Pond LLC, an entity managed by Simon Property Group. The parcels include the mall’s food court and most of its smaller storefronts. Tenants in the Simon-owned portion of the mall include H&M, Lids, Old Navy, and a Regal Cinemas location. The Mall at Solomon Pond entity filed for bankruptcy in March, according to federal court documents. The mall was placed in receivership in 2021 after Simon Property Group, the mall’s original developer, could not reach an agreement with its lender to modify the terms of its mortgage, according to Boston Business Journal.   A federal judge signed off on the transaction on Dec. 5, according to court documents.  The mall was built in 1996 and sits on several different parcels split between Marlborough and Berlin, with the mall having a Marlborough address.  Other parcels at the site are under a variety of different owners, with the future of those parcels unconfirmed. Parcels containing the JCPenney and Macy’s stores at the site are owned by those companies, while a parcel containing the former locations of a Sears and Sears Auto Center are owned by an entity managed by ESL Investments, a Florida-based hedge fund.  A Macy's spokesperson told WBJ via email they have no announcements regarding the future of the Marlborough store. JCPenney and ESL did not immediately respond to requests for comments about the future of their parcels at the site.  The sale was facilitated by William Kelleher, Jim Umphrey, Philip DeSimone, and Andrew Sherman of Kelleher & Sadowsky Associates in Worcester. The mall opened in 1996 to much fanfare, with shoppers in the Marlborough area then being able to avoid traveling east to the Natick Mall or west to the since-demolished Worcester Galleria.  Like many conventional indoor malls across the country, the Solomon Pond Mall has faced struggles, with crowds at the mall dwindling and major tenants like Sears leaving. Sears closed in 2021, according to the Worcester Telegram.  The most recent blow came in November, when Apple announced it would be moving its retail store to The Shops at Blackstone Valley in Millbury. EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to include details of a statement from Macy's and to include more information regarding the sale.  Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the manufacturing and real estate industries.