North Texas' two big foreclosed regional shopping malls may soon have new owners.

Dallas real estate investor Sam Ware's Dreien Opportunity Partners has bid on Plano's Collin Creek Mall. The same partnership purchased J.C. Penney's Plano headquarters in January.

The mall, built in 1981 on the southwest corner of 15th Street and North Central Expressway, is being marketed by a real estate brokerage firm Avison Young.

Other offers may be pending, but Avison Young didn't respond for more information.

"We did have two groups in recently doing some due diligence," said Peter Braster, director of special projects for the city of Plano.

It was unclear if there were other bidders for the mall.

In Lewisville, an August auction has been scheduled for Vista Ridge Mall, which is at the intersection of Interstate 35E and Sam Rayburn Tollway, where major road construction is about to be completed.

There's some momentum for investors to pursue redevelopment of these older malls that were built along major highways. Two once-thriving regional malls in Dallas, Valley View Center and Red Bird Mall, both have local developers finally working to reinvent them.

Vista Ridge, which was built in 1989, may have more years left as a regional shopping mall. The Aug. 21-23 auction, which will start with an opening bid of $4.5 million, is for the 438,707 square feet of the mall's common area, smaller store space and Cinemark theater. The mall still has four department stores open, which is rare for foreclosed malls these days. Dillard's, J.C. Penney, Macy's and Sears all own their own properties, which are not included in the sale. Ten-X, a California-based online real estate transaction marketplace, is holding the auction.

On the other hand, Collin Creek is ripe for redevelopment, with Macy's departure earlier this year and Dillard's in January 2014. J.C. Penney and Sears are the remaining anchor stores. The Penney store does well, Ware said, and he would expect a redevelopment to include a new Penney store. The mall is built over Spring Creek, which could become a feature of a redevelopment. Two bike trails also lead the property.

The city of Plano has made improvements to its historic downtown on the east side of North Central Expressway and would like to see a new owner at Collin Creek.

A view south of Macy's near where Spring Creek exits underneath Collin Creek Mall in Plano. (Andy Jacobsohn / Staff Photographer)

Collin Creek bidder

"All the growth in the city of Plano has made Collin Creek a desirable location," Ware said. "Plano is mature, and having 100 acres in a city four times as big as it was when this mall was built is something you can't find."

There are so many new uses at retail developments today that weren't part of malls like Collin Creek when it was built nearly four decades ago, he said. Ware declined to say how much his partnership offered for the mall.

In 1999, Ware purchased Prestonwood Town Center in North Dallas and sold it the next year to Archon Group. That regional mall, which was just east of the Dallas North Tollway at Belt Line Road, was eventually torn down and redeveloped with big box stores, including Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

Ware's partnership paid $353 million for Penney's 1.8 million-square-foot headquarters in Plano and 45 acres surrounding it. The building is being prepared now to accommodate one or more new tenants to share the space with Penney, which is downsizing to the north end of the building. Penney's 3,000 employees will take up about 65 percent of the home office the retailer built and moved into in 1992.

Malls abandoned

Both Vista Ridge and Collin Creek are classic examples of major mall developers spinning off or selling batches of their weakest properties. New owners often revive them and redevelop the properties, but not always. In these cases, the malls have fallen in value and then become problems for cities as surrounding property values also decline.

Both Collin Creek and Vista Ridge were last owned by Rouse Properties. General Growth Property had owned the malls and spun them off when it formed Rouse. As Rouse was being sold to another company, Brookfield Asset Management, it let Vista Ridge go back to the lender and defaulted on its loan of $64.3 million.

Collin Creek went into default earlier, in 2015. After Dillard's closed, the mall's cash flow fell fast, and smaller stores left.

Twitter: @MariaHalkias