Brookfield proposes $6.2 million for redeveloping Sears building
City cash totaling $6.2 million would help finance the replacement of Brookfield Square’s Sears building with a cinema and other alternative uses, under a new proposal.
Those funds would pay for demolishing most of the Sears store, which is expected to close in early 2018, reconstructing the nearby parking lot and other items, according to plans unveiled Friday.
The financing proposal, scheduled for a Monday review by the Plan Commission, calls for the city funds to be paid off through property taxes tied to the future cinema and other new buildings at Brookfield Square.
The mall is within an existing tax incremental financing district, which has been used to finance other improvements there. The latest proposal would require Common Council approval.
The financing proposal is tied to plans to redevelop the mall’s southern end, anchored by Sears.
Mall operator CBL & Associates Properties Inc. would raze most of the Sears building.
In its place would be a 41,000square-foot BistroPlex, operated by Marcus Corp. It would offer in-theater dining in all eight auditoriums and a stand-alone bar and lounge.
Also, Chicago-based WhirlyBall would operate a 45,000-square-foot restaurant and entertainment center.
The two-story building would feature game courts where teams of players in bumper cars use hand-held scoops to pass a ball to one another as they try to score by hitting a basketball-like target. The Brookfield Square WhirlyBall also would have laser tag and bowling.
Finally, there would be an 18,000square-foot Sears store. The proposal doesn’t provide additional information, but Sears has been opening stand-alone stores that sell only mattresses and appliances.
Those buildings, along with a small portion of the Sears building that would be retained for three new tenants, would be on 20 acres.
Another nine acres is to be sold to
the city.
That site includes the stand-alone Sears Automotive Center, which is to be demolished and replaced by a five-story, 170-room hotel and connected cityowned conference center.
The expenses to be covered by city funds include demolition, totaling around $2.3 million; reconstruction of the mall’s south ring road, $1.7 million; parking lot reconstruction, $1.4 million; relocated and improved sewers and wa- ter mains, $507,000; and an environmental cleanup, $300,000.
Those funds apparently would replace a $6.55 million grant approved by the Common Council in 2014 for a new parking structure to be built just west of the mall’s Boston Store, its north end anchor.
That project, along with developing new buildings along the Boston Store exterior, have been on hold as Chattanooga, Tenn.-based CBL pivots to redeveloping the mall’s south end.