Barbara Maxwell, 77, of Jennings, still does three laps around the one mile loop every weekday.

“I used to go five,” Maxwell said. “But when all the stores left, I got bored, so I cut down to three.”

Buck now hopes Namdar doesn’t let the mall fall apart before the sides can reach an agreement.

The deal, he acknowledged, is complex. Buck has to negotiate a sale with Namdar and also a payoff of old debt: A group of investors is owed almost $37 million for improvements made to the mall more than a decade ago. They were supposed to be paid back with sales taxes generated from a special taxing district there — but with so many vacancies, the district had little means to repay the debt.

Zimmerman said this week that the project’s far from dead.

“It’s just a question of figuring out how much everyone is willing to take,” Zimmerman said.