URW Sells Westfield Annapolis Mall

A Maryland mall that has lost four anchor tenants has sold to a company that focuses on turning around struggling shopping centers. 

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield sold the Westfield Annapolis mall to Dallas-based Centennial, The Baltimore Banner reported Monday. The sale price wasn't reported, and the deal doesn't appear to have posted to property records. 

The 1.3M SF mall's latest assessed value was $346M, according to Maryland property records. 

URW and Centennial didn't respond to Bisnow's requests for comment.

Built in 1980, the Westfield Annapolis has lost Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom, Sears and Bowtie Cinemas since 2018, according to the Banner. The JCPenney at the mall is also slated to close next year, but tenants Onelife Fitness, Hobby Lobby and Grocery Outlet are slated to replace it, according to a flyer from retail brokerage H&R Retail. 

The sale comes two years after Paris-based mall giant URW said it planned to exit its U.S. portfolio by the end of 2023. That date passed, and the company still hadn't sold many of its U.S. malls, which appeared to be recovering from the sector's pandemic-era downturn, but it has sold some underperforming assets. In September, it sold a mall outside Los Angeles to Centennial, and the buyer said it planned to turn it into a mixed-use destination. 

Centennial in 2020 acquired the Dulles Town Center mall in Northern Virginia — after it had lost anchor tenants and Lerner Enterprises handed it back to the lender — and Centennial President Whitney Livingston told Bisnow at the time it was planning a mixed-use redevelopment. 

The White Marsh Mall, another mall in the Baltimore area, went into receivership last year. The property has lost 73% of its value since its CMBS loan was originated in 2013, according to a new appraisal last month.