Lincoln’s Gateway Mall sold for $51.5 million | Local Business News

Washington Prime Group, which owns nearly 90 malls in the U.S., including several in the Midwest, purchased Gateway Mall earlier this month.

“We are pleased to add Gateway Mall to our nearly 100 open-air and enclosed retail assets throughout the U.S.,” the company said in a statement. “As the largest and only enclosed shopping center in the Lincoln area, Gateway Mall features more than 100 retailers, including many of which are first-to-market and market-exclusive, providing a business-friendly environment that is attractive to new tenants.”

Among Washington Prime’s holdings are Southern Hills Mall in Sioux City, Iowa, Empire East in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It also owns two malls in the Kansas City area.

Washington Prime Group is majority owned by investment firm SVPGlobal, which rescued the company from bankruptcy last year.

According to a local real estate transfer filed earlier this month, a company called Gateway Mall Propco LLC purchased the mall for $51.5 million. The address listed for that company is the same one as SVPGlobal.

SVPGlobal declined to comment through a spokesperson.

Gateway had been owned since 2012 by Starwood Capital Group, which bought the mall from Westfield, an Australian company.

Starwood, which went on a mall-buying spree several years ago and at one point was the fifth-largest mall owner in the U.S., sold a number of its malls after the pandemic and also defaulted on some others.

Gateway was one of only a handful it still owned, although the mall was actually being managed by a company called JLL.