As Simon Forecloses On Montgomery Mall, The Future Is Murky

MONTGOMERY TOWNSHIP, PA — Some would say the writing was already on the wall for a long time.

Montgomery Mall lost one of its most significant pieces when Sears left last year. During the pandemic, what was once the mall's anchor became one of the county's largest COVID-19 vaccination sites.

It was perhaps a symbolic conversion, a signal of a transition: the same pandemic which exacerbated existing trends which sent shoppers away from brick and mortar stores, and toward online shopping, now had a physical presence in the abandoned store.

Just last month, Simon Property Group foreclosed on Montgomery Mall, after they failed to make monthly payments on a $100 million loan originally taken out in 2014. Simon now owes a $118 million judgement. The mall will be sold to cover it.

It remains unclear who the next owners of the mall will be, once it's out of the hands of creditors. And it's even less certain if some recognizable version of the mall, which has stood since 1977 on Bethlehem Pike, will persist into the near future.

The Philadelphia Business Journal notes that due to the departure of some major tenants over the past several years, roughly 170,000 square feet of the property are currently vacant.

Since that $100 million loan was disbursed by the Royal Bank of Scotland, the value of the property has plummeted from $195 million to just $61 million, according to financial analysis site Wolf Street.

Looking into the future, even beyond the changes wrought by the pandemic and the ever-growing presence of online shopping, there are other signs that may not bode well for the future of Montgomery: namely, the the existence of neighboring malls that either bring something to the table that Montgomery doesn't, or that do the same thing, but on a much bigger scale. Specifically, the Plymouth Meeting Mall and King of Prussia Mall, each just a short drive away.

Plymouth Meeting appeared to be going the way Montgomery several years ago, as multiple flagship department store tenants, like J.C. Penney, departed. But under new ownership, Plymouth Meeting reinvented itself as a "lifestyle destination," opening a series of restaurants, health and wellness stores, a Whole Foods, and, as the crown jewel, Legoland.

King of Prussia, meanwhile, is widely renown, and one of the largest of its kind on the planet. It's just a few miles down the road from Montgomery, and while it may suffer in this new climate, particularly post-pandemic, it faces fewer of the existential questions that inevitably confront smaller complexes.

With the future in jeopardy, or at least uncertain, what are your favorite memories of the Montgomery Mall? Reminisce here.