Renovations planned at NorthTown Mall

The owner of NorthTown Mall plans to demolish much of the shopping center’s north end to build a new entrance as part of an overall renovation, the company said Thursday.

Starting early next year, about 120,000 square feet of space between the Macy’s and Kohl’s stores on the north end will be torn down and replaced with about 63,000 square feet of newly built retail and restaurant space, according to a news release.

NorthTown General Manager John Shasky said much of the area to be demolished is already vacant. “That’s been on purpose,” he said. “For the past 18 months we’ve been working on relocations” in anticipation of the remodeling project.

The project also includes a reconfigured parking lot and new interior paint, lighting and signage.

General Growth Properties, the Illinois company that owns the mall, is investing in such redevelopments at many of its 123 U.S. properties to fuel internal growth, according to the company’s most recent quarterly earnings statement.

Shasky said the facelift of the mall’s north end is in recognition of the heavy traffic that enters the mall from Queen Avenue. Access from Queen to the mall parking lot will remain the same, he said.

He said the mall expects to sign new “first-to-market” tenants but declined to give specifics. Shasky also would not reveal the cost of the renovation.

The project should be finished in early 2015, the news release said.

NorthTown opened in 1954 and has been enlarged and remodeled over the years. It has about 1 million square feet of space, according to General Growth Properties. The company also owns Spokane Valley Mall.

Another former General Growth Properties shopping center, Silver Lake Mall in Coeur d’Alene, was spun off to Rouse Properties in 2012 after General Growth filed for bankruptcy protection and reorganized.