Malls Invested Billions on Concept Parks to Woo Purchasers. It Designed Issues Worse.

SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Destiny Usa is New York’s biggest procuring mall, a six-story structure by Onondaga Lake. Its function attraction is WonderWorks, a 40,000-square-foot concept park wherever youngsters can experience a simulated earthquake, understand about place vacation carrying an astronaut match or engage in laser tag.

They could, that is, right until the condition made the mall shut lots of of the attractions in November for the next time very last yr to counter Covid-19. Only 18% of the house leased to amusement tenants is open up now, said a spokesman for the mall’s operator, Pyramid Administration Cos.

Adding concept-park-like points of interest was a technique that Pyramid considered as essential to drawing foot traffic and reversing the yearslong struggles of shopping mall operators battling on line purchasing. Now, the tactic seems to be less like a lifeline and more like a millstone.

Even as new pandemic steps have permitted the mall’s suppliers to reopen, laws have stored lots of of its enjoyment sights shut. Pyramid, which is privately held, borrowed closely to grow and to build enjoyment extravaganzas at Future United states and another mall, Palisades Center in West Nyack, N.Y., and the costs are coming because of.

In April, the Pyramid entities that function the two malls grew to become delinquent on securitized credit card debt named commercial home finance loan-backed securities, or CMBS, according to authentic-estate-info supplier Trepp LLC, eventually negotiating extensions and deferrals.