Published January 2005

Everett Mall kicks off
$30 million expansion

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

When it was bought by Steadfast Commercial Property in June, the Everett Mall found itself with a new owner and management company. Soon afterward, the 30-year-old retail center found it had a new lease on life as well.

Newport Beach, Calif.-based Steadfast, which recently transformed the SeaTac Mall into The Commons at Federal Way, wasted no time in making improvements to the 673,000-square-foot Everett facility. Enhancements made during the past few months have included repairing the roof and tile, upgrading the power and its distribution, improving the internal and external lighting, putting in new curbing and pavement for the parking lot and planting new landscape greenery.

“What Steadfast has accomplished in 163 days of ownership is nothing less than miraculous. What is more wonderful is that there is so much more to come,” said Everett Mall General Manager Linda Johannes, speaking at a November ceremony to mark the next phase of mall improvements.

That next phase is a two-year, $30 million expansion and revitalization project that includes:

• Construction of The Village, a 100,000-square-foot retail center to be located on the site of the former Everett Mall Village, a strip mall that was torn down two years ago. Just west of the mall’s main building, The Village will house new tenants Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond and PetsMart.
• The relocation of West Mall Drive to allow easy access to The Village.
• A new 65,000-square-foot, 16-screen Regal Cinema movie theater, to be located on the southwest side of the mall, where Rite Aid had been.
• The addition of Old Navy and Borders to the list of more than 110 shops and services already operating inside the mall plus anchor tenants Bon-Macy’s, Mervyn’s and Sears.
• Updated entrances, signage and a new front facade.

“The announcements made today of the incredible retailers that are joining the Everett Mall will serve as a catalyst for a very aggressive re-merchandising plan that is already under way for internal mall leasing,” James Martin del Campo, director of leasing for Steadfast Commercial Properties, said during the Nov. 18 mall ceremony.

“We expect the first wave of in-line tenants to open in mid-2005, with even more new stores opening in 2006,” he said.

Already, site preparation has begun at The Village, with heavy construction expected to begin in March, said Kristi Keene, the mall’s marketing director. S.D. Deacon Corp. of Bellevue is the project’s general contractor.

Construction inside the mall is expected to begin in February, she added.

As for the new Regal theater, the area of the former Rite Aid will be demolished and redeveloped to include seating for at least 2,900, with the facility expected to be open in 2006, Keene said.

No decisions have been made about filling the 13,430 square feet of space now occupied by a three-screen Regal theater on the mall’s east side, Keene said. What is known is that the possibilities for the mall are boundless.

“Without support from ownership, a mall can really suffer. Steadfast is really committed,” said Keene, who has been on hand as the Everett Mall changed ownership three times between 2001 and 2004.

In mid-2001, the former mall ownership group of Titanic Associates, Hindenburg Associates and Normandy Associates defaulted on a loan to New York-based Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. The lender then took title to the mall to erase more than $55 million in debt owed it, becoming the retail center’s new owners and establishing Madison Marquette Real Estate Services as the mall’s management company in December 2001.

Under Madison Marquette, the Everett Mall underwent an internal remodel in 2002, with plans calling for an external remodel as well. The external remodel never happened as talk of a possible sale began to simmer, Keene said.

That simmer turned to a boil in June, when Steadfast purchased the mall for $50.27 million, according to documents filed with Snohomish County.

And since then, “it’s been wonderful — and so good after a couple of false starts,” Keene said.

Johannes, at the November ceremony, agreed.

“This day has been long in coming but well worth waiting for,” she said.

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