The owner of the Pittsburgh Mills mall property in Frazer has acquired a new property.
Residents don’t have to leave the mall to see it. According to the Allegheny County Real Estate portal, Pitt Realty LLC, purchased the Macy’s store attached to the mall. Pitt Realty is a limited liability company listed as one of the owners of the Mills mall and is owned by Namdar Realty Group.
County real estate records show the commercial real estate investment firm bought the property — a little more than 12 acres — for $2 million at the end of January.
Macy’s, an anchor store, had owned its store property at the mall.
Namdar officials did not respond to a TribLive request for comment Thursday.
The sale comes on the heels of Macy’s announcing its Mills mall location is on a list of 150 locations the New York City-based retailer plans to shutter through this year. About 14 of the stores, including the Mills location, were expected to close in the first three months of this year.
“After careful consideration, we’ve made the decision to close our Macy’s store at Pittsburgh Mills. The decision allows us to focus on improving nearby Macy’s locations and invest in the stores and digital experiences where customers are choosing to shop today,” Macy’s Inc. said in a statement to TribLive.
“We first communicated directly with our Macy’s colleagues at Pittsburgh Mills and are supporting them through the transition, including transfer opportunities where available and severance and support where applicable.”
The store is still open. A clearance sale started last month and will run for about 10 weeks.
With the closure, shoppers will be forced to join the online movement or drive at least 30 minutes to the Ross Park, Monroeville or Westmoreland malls to shop at a Macy’s.
The whole mall up for sale
As for the larger mall property, Namdar has been quietly shopping the Mills property to prospective buyers for the past eight months.
An email received by some local real estate agents last June from Namdar Realty Group’s chief operating officer, Dan Dilmanian, said Namdar is “quietly exploring an off-market sale.”
According to Namdar, the mall building is 900,000 square feet. Mixed-use and warehouse uses are permitted, the company said.
There are 43 acres of excess, buildable land on the property, it said.
New York-based Namdar acquired the property in 2018. In 2023, Frazer initiated a sheriff’s sale on the mall, seeking $11.5 million in accrued special assessment bills, but Namdar paid that money before the sale could be held.
The company is appealing more than $11 million in fines handed down in August by District Judge Michael Girardi.
At that time, the owners were found guilty of 364 code violations for lack of attention to mall maintenance, including cratered roads, overgrown weeds and building violations cited by Frazer Code Enforcement Officer Bill Payne.
In November, Mills owners were ordered to pay more than $17 million in response to poor road, sidewalk and door conditions at the mall complex. Allegheny County Judge Thomas Flaherty handed down the fines, saying throughout each juncture and appeal, it hasn’t appeared that Namdar has made any corrective proposal or plan to fix the issues.
Recently, shoppers have seen repaved roads in some areas of the Mills complex.
Barring successful appeals, the latest ruling means the mall’s owners now face almost $29 million in fines over the condition of the property.
Township Secretary Lori Ziencik declined to comment about the purchase of Macy’s.
