Judge Holds Northridge Mall Owners In Contempt, Issues $2,000 Daily Fine

Milwaukee County Judge William Sosnay is promising an end to the drawn-out legal saga involving Northridge Mall.

He ruled Monday that U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group, the Chinese owners of the long-closed mall, has until the close of business Friday to secure the property or it will face daily fines of $2,000. In addition, Sosnay scheduled a final hearing on Black Spruce’s 2019 appeal of the city’s order to demolish the mall.

“This has gone on for too long and needs to come to some resolution,” said Sosnay. He ruled Black Spruce was in contempt of court for failing to secure the property as it had promised in a 2019 agreement with the city. Four fires in the past month have damaged the 900,000-square-foot complex and a number of social media posts indicate trespassing regularly occurs at the property.

Calling the mall “unsafe” and “dangerous,” Sosnay pledged to bring an end to a court case that has twisted through the legal system. “This is not going to go on for three years. The court finds this very disturbing,” he said during a hearing Monday.

The city filed a petition in July to have the court enforce the 2019 security agreement, which includes fencing and 24-hour security personnel. Then two more fires struck the mall. Fire Chief Aaron Lipski was on site to combat the latest blaze last Wednesday night.

“Every one of these is an enormous drag on city resources,” said Lipski in a press conference after the two-alarm blaze was extinguished. “There is nobody maintaining this property. There is nobody responsible for this property. There might be an owner on a piece of paper. That’s not the same, not when my firefighters’ lives are at risk.”

He told the media Wednesday he didn’t know what the next step was, but on Monday morning he found himself called to the witness stand. Lipski, under the questioning of assistant city attorney Theresa Montag, walked the court through his department’s ongoing response to the issues and how he believes the structure is now even more dangerous given the repeated damage. “We are not in a position where we can pick and choose who we might rescue,” he said of the need to enter the burning building each time a fire is reported.

Milwaukee Police Department lieutenant Shannon Taylor detailed how police have been dispatched to the property 25 times in 2022, each time for “one to two hours,” for reports of trespassing, vandalism or other property crimes. Department of Neighborhood Services inspector Tim Bolger explained the declining conditions of the mall’s interior and exterior observed during his monthly inspections of the property.

In addition to finding Black Spruce in contempt, Sosnay set an Oct. 3 hearing on the merits of the case.

Should the city prevail in its quest to have the mall demolished, it would still likely be several years before the site could be redeveloped. If Black Spruce not demolish the complex by itself, the city would need to find several additional million dollars to complete the work. It could then apply that cost to the property’s tax bill, but would need to wait until the taxes are unpaid for multiple years to be able to initiate a foreclosure action. Should Black Spruce still not pay the back taxes, the city could take possession and execute a redevelopment plan.

City officials previously said the ownership group has let back taxes accumulate, only to pay them as the city was preparing to act. Black Spruce attorney Christopher M. Kloth said Monday that he believed Black Spruce was again behind on its taxes. “We’re aware,” said one of the attorneys representing the city.

Kloth, who only started representing the mall owners this year, said Black Spruce felt it did not have to comply with the terms of the 2019 agreement because it had appealed a 2020 ruling.

“I think it was unreasonable for Black Spruce to decide the order no longer applies,” said Sosnay in making his ruling.

Kloth declined to comment after Monday’s hearing.

Security at the mall was previously improved after a maintenance worker was killed by a high-voltage transformer in an electrical box at the mall in July 2019. The electrical box was previously damaged by scrappers, the Milwaukee Police Department said. A civil case is still open from that incident.

Case and Mall History

In April 2019, city officials gathered outside the mall to announce a plan to issue a raze order on the property, a potential precursor to acquiring the property. Then-area Alderwoman Chantia Lewis said a legally-filmed, 2017 video inspired a wave of vandalism and trespassing.

But Black Spruce contested the city’s raze order, triggering the ongoing legal case. State law allows a raze order to be issued when repair costs exceed 50% of the building’s value. The Department of Neighborhood Services estimated in 2019 that repairs would cost $6 million and the attached buildings are only assessed for $81,000. The underlying 46.5 acres of land are assessed at more than $2 million.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge William Pocan ruled in the city’s favor in a 2020 trial, but Black Spruce appealed the ruling.

In March, the Wisconsin Appeals Court sent the case back down to the circuit court. In a written decision, it said Pocan improperly ruled that the cost to repair the buildings should be based on what was needed to open them to the public, instead of more limited repairs to maintain the buildings as vacant.

The last firm that represented Black Spruce, Von Briesen & Roper, withdrew for breach of contract and is now suing Black Spruce.

Northridge opened in 1972. The mall failed for a number of reasons, including a lack of direct freeway access, chain bankruptcies, the cyclical nature of malls and negative perception created following Jesse Anderson‘s murder of his wife in the mall’s parking lot and the subsequent false claim that the couple was attacked by two Black males. The mall’s competitors, including Mayfair, Brookfield Square, Southridge and Bayshore, have all received substantial public subsidies to help finance updates in the years since Northridge closed.

The mall closed in 2003. Black Spruce acquired the approximately 900,000-square-foot building complex for $6 million in 2008. It has proposed creating an Asian marketplace, but those plans have never advanced.

August 2022 Photos

April 2019 Photos