Colonial Park Mall under agreement to be sold

The Colonial Park Mall has a buyer.

Ray Jackson, the principal of Stonewall Capital in Timonium, Maryland, confirmed that his company has agreed to purchase the mall at 4600 Jonestown Road in Lower Paxton Township.

“It’s a highly desirable location,” he said. “I’m very encouraged” that the project is moving forward.

Stonewall Capital plans to create a mixed-use campus with retail, restaurants, apartments, for-sale condo units, a medical office building and a hotel. The price of the acquisition couldn’t be revealed because of a nondisclosure agreement.

In the summer of 2020, Lower Paxton Township supervisors approved a zoning ordinance specifically for the mall parcel and supported a mixed-use property that along with retail could include apartments, hotels and offices.

The mall should be a “lively place,” Jackson said. “It needs life again. A mixed-use component will do that.”

A deal with the owner of the mall, Great Neck, New York-based Kohan Retail Investment Group, which purchased the property for $15 million in 2017, should be done by September, he said.

The transaction doesn’t include the former Sears store and related properties, which are owned by Transformco. Stonewall Capital “is in active conversation” with Transformco, Jackson said.

Reading-based Boscov’s has a store in the mall, too, that’s owned separately.

Built in 1960, the financially struggling Colonial Park Mall has around 40 tenants as well as dozens of vacancies. It owed $256,000 in overdue sewer and stormwater bills as of late March and has been scheduled for a sheriff’s sale July 20 if the bills aren’t paid by then.

The new mall owner plans to keep as many existing tenants in place as possible while construction work is ongoing.

Among Stonewall Capital’s other projects is ONE Westport, the $500 million development of a 43-acre vacant parcel in Baltimore on the western shore of the middle branch of the Patapsco River, just south of Interstate 95/Interstate 295 and Inner Harbor.

Working with several partners, Stonewall Capital is master developer of the waterfront site. ONE Westport will feature townhomes for ownership, affordable and market-rate apartments,

senior apartments, retail and office space, public parks, a waterfront promenade and a multipurpose public recreation field, according to its website.

Paula Wolf is a freelance writer