So Eastland Mall’s owner is walking away from the property and a $42m. balloon payment. Thus the city of Charlotte’s first whack at re-developing the site whiffs.
One of the goals of the city spending $150K for options to buy a couple of mall’s parcels was to entice a buyer to come forward before current owner Gilmcher walked away. That has not worked. I said it would not work.
All that matters now is what the note-holder of the property — the name of which oddly has not been reported by the Uptown paper of record, which means I have to go dig it up — will do next. All the talk of the city having a say in what happens next via the options it holds is irrelevant. What matters is cash.
Lots of it.
