Boca mall sues Sears property owner

Town Center seeking to buy former store location

Will the former Sears be an outdoor marketplace? A hotel and fitness center? There’s a battle brewing between the Boca Raton mall and the owner of the closed

Sears site, and it could affect the future of that former department store site.

Developers have recognized that malls are no longer only for shopping.

Customers are looking for experiences, which keep shoppers spending more time and money. A new lawsuit that pits developer against developer, each with their own plans to use the former Sears site in Boca Raton, illustrates the challenges getting to that vision.

Town Center at Boca Raton

has filed a lawsuit in Palm Beach Circuit Court against Seritage SRC Finance, the current owner of the property leased by Sears until it closed in 2018.

While Simon Property Group owns most of Town Center, the space owned owned by Sears was reclaimed by New York-based Seritage Growth Properties.

In the Oct. 31 lawsuit, Town Center says Seritage breached a 1985 contract made with Sears, and that Town Center now has the right to buy back the store site.

Meanwhile, Seritage has filed plans with the city for a hotel, fitness center and entertainment at the site.

In 2018, Seritage submitted plans to Boca Raton to develop the 239,000 site into an “open-air development” with a hotel, fitness center and entertainment.

Town Center considers the development “non-retail” and says it should have been notified of the use

when the plans were submitted to the city, according to the suit.

The lawsuit asks Seritage to comply with the agreement by allowing an appraisal of the Sears property and to stop Seritage from developing the site as “non-retail.”

Seritage has been redeveloping former Sears spaces and other retail. One example is the Esplanade at Aventura, an outdoor mall space at Aventura Mall. The space is 215,000 square feet of retail, entertainment and restaurants in an openair setting, according to Seritage’s site.

Town Center, which opened in 1980, still has several anchor stores including Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. Town Center recently added five retailers at the mall.