Findlay Village Mall sells for $4 million

FINDLAY, Ohio (WTVG) - The Findlay Village Mall is mostly quiet Thursday morning.

It is a combination of it being Thursday, COVID-19 and fading tenants inside this property on the east side of town.

“Big box retail and malls have been dying forever that’s not unique to Findlay,” Findlay Hancock Economic Development Director Tim Mayle said. "We’re trying to look more toward lifestyle opportunities. The Children’s Museum is out there right now. But you think of things like Dave and Buster’s - family oriented opportunities - those are the types of things we’re going to be going after.

Mayle and his team of two at Findlay Hancock Economic Development will now work with the new owner Kohan Retail Investment Group out of New York.

“Let’s say for example if you rent that space to the call center and you have 300 employees that are working for that call center that’s 300 people coming in everyday to the mall,” Kohan Retail Investment Group Chief Executive Office Mike Kohan said. “Regardless they’ll be using the food court, they’ll also be shopping.”

If the Kohan names sounds familiar, it is because it was the last owner of the Woodville Mall in Northwood.

“Woodville Mall was truly a distressed mall,” Kohan said. “When I took Woodville Mall, we had maybe less than 10 tenants. it was a dead mall to begin with. Sometimes you can’t just bring back a dead horse.”

“He’s going in to difficult situation to begin with so he’s dealt a really tough hand,” Mayle said. “On the flip side, you can go online and see all the success he had.”

Mike Neff owns M.A. Sports inside the Findlay Village Mall. Before Wednesday’s sale announcement, he already had plans to move out in January to a site on North Main Street. Thursday morning his store is quiet. Diagonally across from his space is an empty unit.

“When you get two, three, four sales boy I tell you, you just go home and think at night,” Neff said. “Am I making the right decision?”

Moving forward, Mayle says he is optimistic about the site after Wednesday’s sale.

“Coming from New York we want to make sure he has all the resources he has to communicate to potential investors in the mall that we are not your typical 42,000 person community.”