The Fashion Square Mall in Saginaw is about to go into a foreclosure sale, and I'm wondering if the Genesee Valley Center is not far behind.

Get our free mobile app

Before you think I am predicting doom and gloom for the Valley, you need to know a few things. The Genesee Valley Center was recently bought by the same group that owned the Fashion Square Mall. The Namdar Realty Group owned both malls for a few years, before defaulting on a loan for the Fashion Square Mall. According to Mlive, that defaulted loan is what lead to the foreclosure sale coming on October 8th.

The public foreclosure auction is scheduled Friday, Oct. 8, at 10 a.m. near the front entrance of the Saginaw County Governmental Center, 111 S. Michigan in Saginaw.

So this news leads me to wonder if the Namdar group is defaulting on a loan for the Fashion Square Mall, will the Valley be next? Obviously I don't know much about the financial dealings of the group, and who knows, maybe they paid cash for the Valley.

What I can say for sure is that both malls are much less busy than they have ever been. The pandemic shut down was a huge blow to both malls, especially since malls all over America have been struggling to compete with online shopping.

Google Streetview
Google Streetview
loading...

I worked in the Fashion Square Mall for a few years in the late 90's, and every year as a kid we would take a trip to the mall for school shopping. It's such a shock for me to walk in the mall now, and see so many empty storefronts. I'm not sure who is a potential buyer for the mall, but if they want to bring it back to being a viable shopping center, they have their work cut out for them.

It is possible that a future buyer could turn the space into something completely different. There is no rule saying that it has to remain a mall, but it would be an extremely ambitious project to try and transform it into something else.

The biggest question I have now is what will happen to the Genesee Valley Center? There's been no word that Namdar has plans to sell or anything, but it's hard not to wonder with what happened in Saginaw.

50 Haunted Michigan Locations

Below is just the tip of the iceberg—a list of fifty Michigan hauntings that have been "reported" in cemeteries, houses, woods, jails, businesses, neighborhoods...if you can name it, there's probably a haunting for it.

Take a look at the list of fifty Michigan hauntings below and come to your own conclusions.

More From Banana 101.5