Alexandria Living Magazine
Landmark Mall in Alexandria's West End.
As the global — and local — economy goes on a roller coaster ride, Alexandria residents are voicing concerns that the redevelopment of Landmark Mall could be facing uncertainty.
An official from Howard Hughes Corp., a Texas-based company that owns the 51-acre property and has been working on redevelopment plans for several years, said in response to email inquiries from Alexandria Living Magazine: “Sorry, no update for now, but we’ll let you know when we have a good update.”
So what seems to have led to residents’ questions in the past few weeks?
With input from residents, businesses and City officials here in Alexandria, Howard Hughes Corp. over the past two years has been working on plans to create an entirely new mixed-use development with retail, offices, civic uses, residential and green space, a transit hub and more.
Howard Hughes Corp. owns, manages and redevelops properties throughout the United States for commercial, residential and mixed-uses. Landmark Mall is the company’s only property in Virginia.
In October 2019, Howard Hughes Corp. appointed Paul Layne the new CEO of the company, replacing David Weinreb, and simultaneously announced a plan to sell about $2 billion in real estate and other assets by early 2021.
The company also announced plans to cut tens of millions in overhead in an effort to create "a lean, focused, decentralized organization built around the company's core master-planned communities," according to a Howard Hughes Corp. statement.
As part of that transformation of the company, Howard Hughes Corp. released an initial list of properties and “non-core assets” the company planned to sell — that list did not include Landmark Mall.
However, Mark Bulmash, senior vice president for development at Howard Hughes Corp., was a key player in Landmark’s redevelopment — and he is no longer with the company. It is not clear when or why he left.
Bulmash had won accolades for a long-term agreement to allow the Carpenter’s Shelter to use the former Macy’s space for its operations while the organization built a new shelter and housing development in Old Town.
Then, Alexandria City Council Member Canek Aguirre at a March 7 West End Coalition meeting told residents that he thought Howard Hughes Corp. might be losing interest in the Landmark Mall redevelopment project, as the company pivots toward a different business model.
“They’ve decided that they’re not going to be in the business of doing some of the redevelopments that they had in their portfolio, and they may be going to focus on larger small area plans — and we’re kind of left here thinking, ‘What about us?’” Aguirre told Alexandria Living. “We really don’t know.”
Aguirre said he hasn’t heard directly from Howard Hughes Corp. about the project recently, but like other West End residents, he’s frustrated with the pace of redevelopment.
General Growth Properties, which at one point owned the central portion of the mall (except for Macy's and Sears) talked about a major renovation as early as 2006. City Council approved Howard Hughes Corp.'s initial plan to renovate that portion of the mall in 2013. In the ensuing years, Howard Hughes Corp. gained control of the Macy's property and reached a redevelopment agreement with Seritage, the Sears real estate holding company.
In 2018 and 2019, Howard Hughes Corp. hosted multiple community input meetings with Alexandria residents and started to work on design options and zoning plans for the site. There has been no significant update to the public since then.
In Mayor Justin Wilson’s Council Connection email Wednesday morning, Wilson wrote, “There have been discussions between the City and Howard Hughes about potential public/private partnerships that will help spur the redevelopment, but as Howard Hughes continues with a restructuring, it remains to be seen who will ultimately bring Landmark through redevelopment.”
Wilson ended his email with an optimistic tone: “While no one should be convinced until they see bulldozers knocking down the existing mall site, there is a lot going on. Landmark Mall redevelopment has been complicated from the beginning, but I believe we can be cautiously optimistic that it is finally coming together. The redevelopment of the Landmark Mall site has been a long time in coming to fruition. I am optimistic that we are finally making real progress in this effort.”
