Westmount Shopping Centre in southwest London has been sold to a huge Toronto real estate investment firm in a $31.5-million deal.

KingSett Capital purchased the property last month from Penretail Management on behalf of Bentall Kennedy, a Vancouver-based company that has owned the property since 2005.

KingSett bills itself as “Canada’s leading private equity investment firm” and has $12.5 billion in assets including office, retail, industrial and residential properties. It has a stake in Scotia Plaza in downtown Toronto, Canada’s third-tallest building.

Officials at KingSett could not be reached immediately for comment.

The sale comes at pivotal time for the mall following the closing of its major retail anchor, Sears, last month. The mall’s Target store, a former Zellers, shut down in 2015.

Peter Whatmore, a senior vice-president with CBRE, said KingSett is a major player in commercial real estate and the large site offers a lot of possibilities for redevelopment.

“They know how to turn assets of this nature around . . . These folks would not be buying if they did not have a serious plan for repositioning it,” said Whatmore.

City planning director John Fleming said he has not had any contact with KingSett but the new London Plan is flexible enough to allow for a major redevelopment of a retail site, including institutional and residential uses.

“We expect shopping areas will reflect a mix of uses. Commercial experts expect internet shopping to grow and that means an adjustment in the floor area for shopping,” said Fleming.

Fleming said Westmount mall could be an ideal infill opportunity because it is now well inside the city and served by schools and transit.

“There’s already lot of public investment around a facility like this and it makes sense to better utilize those services . . . This creates an opportunity for a walkable development,” said Fleming.

The mall was originally developed in the early 1970s by Sifton Properties as a retail centre for the surrounding Westmount neighborhood and expanded to two storeys in 1989.

But under pressure from big box stores, the mall gradually lost retailers and the second floor was converted to office and medical uses including a kidney dialysis centre.

In 2010, a portion of the mall was demolished. A number of stand?alone businesses now occupy the 12-hectare site including a Cineplex Odeon movie theatre.

hdaniszewski@postmedia.com

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