Troubled Racine mall sold to Georgia Firm

Hull group known to renovate dated malls

Racine’s Regency Mall has been sold to a Georgia-based group that focuses on reviving financially troubled shopping malls.

Regency Mall, at Durand Ave. and S. Green Bay Road, is now owned by an affiliate of Hull Property Group.

The mall was sold to Hull by two affiliates of Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL & Associates Properties Inc. for $9.6 million, according to state real estate records posted Tuesday.

An executive from Augusta, Ga.-based Hull couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

Hull’s website says the company’s projects including renovating dated malls.

“We believe that every community should have a first-class enclosed shopping mall as part of a robust and defined retail corridor,” James Hull, the company’s managing principal, wrote at Hull’s website.

Regency Mall has lost two anchor stores in recent years: a Sears department store that closed in 2014 and a J.C. Penney store that closed in 2015.

Another large retailer, consumer electronics and appliance chain hhgregg, closed its Regency Mall store earlier this year.

Regency’s larger stores include Boston Store and Target, according to its website.

Those store buildings are separately owned. The portion of the mall sold by CBL to Hull totals 448,360 square feet, and its largest stores are Burlington Coat Factory and Dunham’s, according to an offering memorandum compiled by Matthews Retail Advisors.

Regency opened in 1981 and was renovated in 2000.