Northridge Unsecured, Owners Face $26,000 In Fines

The City of Milwaukee’s efforts to demolish the long-shuttered Northridge Mall secured a boost Friday.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge William Sosnay said he intends to enforce a $2,000 per day fine for failure to secure the mall. The Chinese ownership group failed to meet an Aug. 19 date to secure the mall and now faces at least $26,000 in fines.

“If somebody thinks those won’t be paid or enforced, they are sadly mistaken, because they are dealing with the wrong judge,” Sosnay said on Friday during a status hearing.

The mall closed in 2003 and has been owned by U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise Group since 2008. The current owners previously proposed creating an Asian marketplace, but those plans have never advanced. Four fires have damaged the 900,000-square-foot complex this summer and a number of social media posts indicate trespassing regularly occurs at the property. City officials claim the mall is now becoming a substantial drain on public safety resources.

In advance of Friday’s hearing, Black Spruce’s attorney Christopher M. Kloth submitted a written report stating that a company hired in August to secure the property withdrew because they did not believe they could complete the job. The report says three other firms did not come to an agreement on contract terms with Black Spruce.

Sosnay said the quoted costs would be cheaper than paying the fines.

“I fail to see the logic or the wisdom of what Black Spruce is doing here,” he said.

The city opened a condemnation case against the property in 2019, but Black Spruce contested the move which resulted in the current lawsuit. An agreement was put in place that Black Spruce would secure the property while the case was ongoing.

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.

After Pocan was appointed to a federal judgeship, Sosnay inherited the case.

“This is not going to go on for three years. The court finds this very disturbing,” said Sosnay during the first hearing he presided over for for the case in August

He set an Oct. 3 final hearing on the matter.

Sosnay is now demanding that Li Yang, Black Spruce’s executive director, appear during the final hearing. Yang is a resident of Canada.

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 does 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.

Back taxes are currently owed on the property, but Black Spruce has previously paid the overdue balance before the city could complete a foreclosure action.

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.

Kloth started representing Black Spruce this year. 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. Black Spruce paid $6 million for the mall property.

August 2022 Photos

April 2019 Photos