Health care provider buys old Sears store at Moorestown Mall

PREIT has sold the former Sears store at Moorestown Mall in New Jersey to Cooper University Health Care for $10.1 million, a deal that the mall owner has been promising for some months.

PREIT CEO Joseph Coradino had made the forthcoming deal public in laying out the renovation of Moorestown, which is a suburb of Philadelphia. Cooper will move into more than 165,000 sq. ft. at the mall to install what it describes as a “state-of-the-art” multi-specialty facility.

Earlier this year, the mall owner secured a rezoning agreement to allow the addition of more than 1,000 apartment units and hotel at Moorestown, located just six miles from the company’s Cherry Hill Mall. 

Coradino has told Chain Store Age that its malls in densely populated metros such as Philadelphia and Washington D.C. would be considered for residential and hotel additions, all affected by selling parts of the properties to residential and other commercial developers

Moorestown Mall was chosen for mixed-use renovation due to its access to the New Jersey Turnpike and Route 73, which leads to the Betsy Ross Bridge and Philadelphia.

PREIT estimates that it will add 5,000 to 7,000 apartment units and several hotels to its qualified sites.