Washington Prime Group Selling Boynton Beach Mall as It Winds Down

Washington Prime Group plans to sell the Boynton Beach Mall and close its doors in January, the Columbus, Ohio based real estate investment trust confirmed to the Palm Beach Post, The Real Deal reported. The move is the next step in a wind-down the company announced last year for its remaining shopping center portfolio.

Washington Prime emerged from bankruptcy five years ago, then said in 2025 it would unload what was left of its holdings. The Boynton Beach property, at 801 North Congress Avenue, sits on 91 acres already entitled for suburban mixed-use redevelopment, including approval for up to 1,700 housing units. The Real Deal reported that no buyer has been named and no price disclosed.

Palm Beach County property records show the mall’s main 70.7-acre parcel is held by an affiliate, Boynton Beach Mall LLC, mailed to Washington Prime’s Marysville, Ohio address. The parcel is assessed at $25.8 million, on a deed last recorded for a nominal $10 in 2014, the year Washington Prime spun off from Simon Property Group as a standalone REIT.

Why it matters

The mall, open since 1985, has become another entry in a wave of South Florida mall-to-mixed-use conversions. Nearby, Bainbridge Companies is under contract to build 620 apartments on the former Nordstrom site at the Mall at Wellington Green, and Simon Property Group is redeveloping the former Sears at Boca Raton’s Town Center into a hotel, apartments and retail. Washington Prime’s own retreat is steeper: a distressed Chicago mall it once owned sold for $12.3 million in January, a fraction of the $52.8 million loan it carried in 2014, after KeyBank took the property back and resold it to Xroads Real Estate Advisors.

The numbers

Tenants have been notified their leases will be terminated, though JCPenney, Cinemark and Christ Fellowship Church, which own their own parcels on the site, could stay open past the closure date, Washington Prime told the newspaper. Other tenants include Dillard’s Clearance, Foot Locker, Hot Topic and Victoria’s Secret. The Real Deal reported that more than a dozen South Florida malls are pursuing similar rebrands as mixed-use centers, a trend tracked across South Florida real estate.

What’s next

With no buyer named, the entitlement for 1,700 housing units is the likeliest draw for a sale, mirroring the Improv and Copper Blues pad conversion at the Mall at Wellington Green. Whoever acquires the Boynton Beach site inherits a vacant regional mall with zoning already in hand, the scarcest ingredient in South Florida’s mixed-use pipeline.