MIDLAND — Separated by 130 miles, two floundering Michigan shopping malls faced mortgage foreclosure and a relentless cascade of store closures.

What they also had in common was an urgent need last year for a new owner who could turn them around, or at least fill some vacancies and prevent an abrupt closure.

But whether Eastland Center in Harper Woods and Midland Mall on the outskirts of Midland have found their savior is an open question.

The Great Neck, N.Y.-based firm that bought both properties, Kohan Retail Investment Group, is known for buying distressed malls and attempting to refill what is there — not for undertaking extensive redevelopments of the sort which gave new life to Macomb Mall in Roseville several years ago.

The malls have continued to see tenants depart.

Time will tell whether the new owner's light-touch strategy can fix the deep problems affecting Eastland and Midland Mall, problems that afflict numerous other struggling mid- and lower-tier malls across the country as more shopping is done online.

“My operation is about buying malls. ... I’ll do my work, I’ll try to fill out the mall," Mike Kohan, the company's principal, said in a short phone interview. “I’m not a developer. But the option is not off the table for a developer to come in and try to join us."

28 malls and counting

Kohan Retail Investment Group owns 28 malls nationwide including Eastland, Midland and The Orchards Mall in Benton Harbor, according to the firm's website. Many of those properties were acquired in just the past couple years.

"I've been in the mall business about 17 years, and I've seen it all,” Kohan said. "Some were not that much of a success for us, but we’re committed and determined to do whatever is in our power to help these malls be revitalized. It’s not an easy task."

The Kohan group bought Midland Mall for a reported $9.4 million last summer and Eastland for $3.125 million at an October online auction.

Both malls at the time were in serious financial distress. But Eastland was in worse shape, having lost nearly all of its onetime anchor stores including Macy's, Sears, Target and Burlington.

For remaining Eastland tenants, the latest challenge is correcting the common presumption that the mall is closed.

”What the mall needs to do is go on the news and let people know they’re not closing, because a lot of people think that the mall is closing” said Renulda Pounds, who runs a food stand in the mall called Holy Hotdogs.

In the interview, Kohan said Eastland, which opened in 1957, is one of the more distressed malls that his group has taken on, although he has no plans to start bulldozing it.

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He is seeking local and national tenants to fill vacancies, he said, and is open to the idea of working with a developer to redo parts of the mall. However, there are currently no redevelopment plans, he said.

"If I bring in a developer, the developer is going to be only for partial – it will not be for the whole mall," Kohan said. "I want to keep the mall going the same way (that) it's been going, and hopefully we can keep it that way or even better."

He added, "I’ll take it one year at a time and see what happens."

Muddling through

Midland has lost three anchor stores: Sears, J.C. Penney and Younkers. This loss triggered provisions in some remaining tenants' leases, allowing them to pay as rent only a percentage of their sales, a situation that contributed to the property's financial stress.

Midland mall, which opened in 1991, also was in foreclosure at the time of its sale because a previous owner defaulted on the property's $31.8 million mortgage in late 2016. Even after the sale to Kohan's group, bond holders took a total loss of $23.3 million from the mall's securitized mortgage, according to data from the Trepp commercial real-estate data firm.

“It has been sort of a distressed mall as far as the financial operations of it since I came to Midland, which is about seven years ago," Midland City Manager Brad Kaye said. "It’s always been in this status of heading into foreclosure or in foreclosure."

Kaye said city officials met with the Kohan group after the sale. The group seemed open to considering non-retail uses for empty anchor stores, Kaye said, but presented no definite plans beyond operating the mall as it now stands.

Slowly leaving

Midland Mall appeared bright and clean on a recent Free Press visit. Aside from the three shuttered anchors, many of the stores inside were open, including a Barnes & Noble, Dunham's Sports, Victoria's Secret and a Target.

Yet one mall wing was mostly darkened storefronts and the remaining retailer, Payless Shoe Source, was preparing to close.

“It’s sad about that, but what do you do?" said Midland Mall's manager Lori Snyder. “We want to stay open. We don’t want to close. But I need foot traffic — that’s the big thing."

Snyder said the Kohan group has been more aggressive in trying to fill vacancies than the mall's previous caretakers during foreclosure. The group also has been more attentive to tenants, she said.

“He (Kohan) is more into listening to the people who are here right now," Snyder said. "If they are struggling a little bit, he is more willing to work with them than any of our past owners.”

There were a dozen or so walkers doing morning laps around the mall, including husband and wife Bernie and Louise Skowronski, who live just outside Midland. They recalled how there use to be even more walkers before the McDonald's in the food court — a popular coffee stop for seniors — closed several years ago. (The spot was later filled by locally owned Midland Burger Co.)

“Slowly the stores have been closing down," Louise Skowronski said. "We worry about what if it does close, where would we walk?”

Mall retail worker Quintara White, 21, said she hasn't noticed many changes under the mall's new ownership.

"They might have something planned, but I don’t know if it’s a lost cause or what," White said. "As you can see it’s dead as can be in here.”

Some Midland tenants say they are doing well.

John Levy, owner of sales and repair shop Computers To Go, said his business is strong at its mall location and he recently renewed the lease. He said many of his customers drive to the mall specifically to visit his shop.

“We had six anchors, we’re down to three, pretty soon I’ll be an anchor if they keep going away," he said with a laugh.

Old but clean

Although its parking lot in places is rutted like a moonscape, Eastland Center mall on the inside appeared clean and orderly last Thursday afternoon, with a strong scent of cleaning products hanging over one entrance.

There were scattered vacancies throughout the concourse, including a recently closed GNC and a soon-to-close Perfumania. Entryways to the mall's old anchor stores were shuttered years ago.

“I don’t know how it’s going to survive," said retail worker Brandon Jackson, who is 22. "Ain’t nothing good gonna happen unless he puts something that people like in here, like another Target or Macy’s. All these small stores aren’t going to do nothing.”

Nevertheless, several tenants say their stores are still doing significant business, particularly on weekends.

Tim Bullis, owner of Motown Tattoo Co., said business has thrived at his tattoo parlor since it opened in Eastland last year and he is considering expanding into a neighboring empty storefront. The Eastland location is now busier than his shop inside Lakeside Mall in Sterling Heights, he said.

“This is like the only mall in Detroit," Bullis said. "The majority of the people who come here are African American. So this is like the only mall around that is actually for that, which is good.”

Last fall the City of Harper Woods unveiled an Eastland public/private redevelopment concept that envisioned tearing down most of the mall and replacing it with a mixed-used project featuring a new city hall, police department, hotel, modern retail shops and hundreds of apartments and row houses.

The Kohan group has yet to embrace that new vision for the mall, city officials said.

"They are trying to take care of it," Harper Woods Mayor Ken Poynter said. "It’s not dumpy or anything, but there are things that need to be refreshed. It looks like, to be honest, a tired old mall. But it’s a clean tired old mall."

Contact JC Reindl: 313-222-6631 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JCReindl.