Syracuse mall asks tenants to leave, shuts for good

Gov. Andrew Cuomo stalled the opening of malls in New York, requiring that air filtration systems be upgraded before they could allow customers in, but ShoppingTown Mall in DeWitt, N.Y., could only let in the rain.

“Any time we had a bad rain, you could walk through the mall and see buckets in the halls,” Anthony Iglesias, owner of the Syracuse Martial Arts Academy, told Syracuse.com. Iglesias endured at ShoppingTown for the low rent: $600.

Now Iglesias and a few other tenants that continued to do business in the mall have been asked to leave by owner Moonbeam Capital Investments, which is closing the doors for good.

ShoppingTown Mall lost J.C. Penney in 2016 and Sears in 2018 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2019. It owed $9.7 in property taxes to DeWitt, a suburb of Syracuse.