The owners of the Riverbirch Corner shopping center in west Sanford are facing civil penalties of up to $250 per day after being notified by city officials of code violations three times since October, including this week for driveway safety issues, the Rant has learned.
Barbara McMillen, Sanford’s code enforcement supervisor, said the city notified the shopping center’s owners in October that more than half the lights in its parking lot were out.
“They worked on that some but the work apparently stalled, so we sent them a notice of civil penalty, which is up to $250 per day from the time of receipt,” McMillen said. “We’re hoping that will get their attention.”
The city also notified Riverbirch’s owners this week that there were a number of large potholes in the driveway areas. Failure to remedy those potholes could result in the same penalty as the parking lot light situation, McMillen said.
Additionally, the city last year notified the company that grass hadn’t been mowed at an outparcel on the property which was formerly home to a BB&T Bank branch. The city eventually cut the grass, although the company ultimately paid for that and began performing lawn maintenance at the property on its own.
“The shopping center is getting to a point where a lot of maintenance issues will need to be addressed,” McMillen said. “We’ve been reaching out to the company by telephone, but they stopped answering our calls.”
Riverbirch, which was built in 1985 and sits on 35 acres on Spring Lane, was sold at auction in late 2017 to a company called Riverbirch Realty LLC. While there had been some hope that Riverbirch could rebound from a bleak outlook at the time, information about the new ownership group indicates that redevelopment or significant investment in the property could be unlikely.
According to the North Carolina Secretary of State website, Igal Namdar of Great Neck, New York is Riverbirch Realty’s executive officer; this Reuters story from 2018 reveals Namdar and his company as one of two with “about 100 malls from New York to Utah now under their ownership” and that allegedly “invest as little as possible on many of their properties.” From the story:
Namdar and Mason typically spend 20 to 50 cents per square foot on maintenance. This compares to an average of about 60 cents per square foot that U.S. mall owners spent on mall upkeep in the first quarter of 2018 among malls that reported square feet for the period, according to National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries.
Namdar and Mason have spent so little on the malls they have acquired, they often yield a 10 to 16 percent capitalization rate, a gauge of the investment’s rate of return, according to real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield’s head of capital markets Mark Gilbert.
This tops last year’s average U.S. mall capitalization rate of 5.4 percent, and even the 9 percent rate mall owners enjoyed on average in their 1990s heyday, according to real estate research firm GreenStreet.
There is even more evidence that Namdar and Mason do not plan to do anything with the malls they buy:
https://www.theadvertiser.com/story/news/2019/02/02/new-acadiana-mall-owner-has-reputation-little-progress-other-sites/2732819002/
I hope the city forces them to sell the mall to a more responsible party!
That’s why many stores have left!!
This is sad! Sanford needs to change their policy on vacant and run down properties. Other towns in N.C. have laws or ordinances on the books that say after a period of time vacant buildings must be torn down at owners expense. Get tough Sanford! Our leadership or lack there of needs to get off their hands and do something. West Sanford, specifically the Spring Lane area is facing the following:
1. A dying shopping center w ownership that doesn’t care
2. The soon to be vacant large car dealership building and lot once they move to southeast side of town.
3. A movie theatre that could or may close any day due to financial problems.
4. A restaurant in the same vincity of the theatre also suffering from poor sales.
5. A bank that has been closed for over a year now and sitting vacant.
However, on the upper side of Spring Lane , the Galleria shopping center is thriving. A nice combination of national chains and small businesses have the center hopping. Recently, a brewery opened at the far end of the Galleria. There are a few spots left before the shopping center willl be 100% full. Rumor has it a gifts, card and novelty store may be coming to the center in the foreseeable future.
Don, thanks for taking the time to lay out the whole situation at River Birch, I’m a new resident here, and have been to that mall twice, and let me just say I was NOT favorably impressed and agree with your comments about Sanford needing to get tough on the owners. Everyone can see the slow demise of the “destination Shopping Mall” phenomenon in the U.S., due in large part to movement of most retail online, but there are still businesses that can thrive in places like the Galleria.
Seems to me, the Galleria is a good example of what could be developed at River Birch under different ownership and (likely) some reconstruction.
So I change my previous comment from “I hope the city forces them to sell the mall to a more responsible party.” to “I plan to VOTE/DEMAND the city enforce to the max whatever local regulations apply to the River Birch site, and consider hiring a consultant to determine what might be done at the state level to force a sale, and identify prospective suitable buyers.
I hope they can save the shopping center it is nice to have something on this side of town.
what a shame….that place is soooo run down….a sore spot of Sanford for sure…..I avoid it now and it used to be the go to!!
What about Kendale Shopping Center and their potholes ? Have any code violations been issued over that way ??
Demolish the entire thing and put in that Target that has been rumored for 15 years. That would get this side of town hopping again.
I wish Sanford would buy that and the shopping center over by Lowe’s Foods and tear down and start over. All of the empty places could go, and we could redo the water problem on my side of US 1 and fix up Lowe’s Foods, like the one in Southern Pines, NC off of Morganton Road. I think a Lowe’s Foods where the one is now, but better, and a Harris Teeter over where the Belk is would be great, turn that old BB&T into a coffee shop. Not a Starbuck’s but a Caribou Coffee Shop, there are TWO in the Cary and Raleigh area. Go see how nice they are…