the staff of the Ridgewood blog
West Nyack NY, the Palisades Center megamall in West Nyack could be headed for a sale to satisfy its owner’s debts. Wilmington Trust, acting as a trustee for CMBS bondholders, filed in New York Supreme Court, New York County, to foreclose on the 2.2 million-square-foot shopping and entertainment complex, claiming Syracuse-based owner Pyramid Management Group defaulted on a $418.5 million loan tied to the mall property.
The Palisades Center, the largest tax generator for the Town of Clarkstown, is the nation’s 12th-largest mall by in terms of leasing space. It was founded amid opposition and controversy in 1998 and includes a ferris wheel, ice rink and 21-screen AMC movie theater. Appraisers pegged the property’s value at $425 million in 2020, according to Trepp, less than half of the $881 million it was valued at in 2016.
JPMorgan Chase and Barclays provided Pyramid with the loan in 2016 and assigned the debt to the CMBS trust and Wilmington as the trustee that same year. Palisades Center suffered from the loss of anchor tenants including JCPenney in the years that followed, and Covid-related business shutdowns exacerbated the situation.
The loan was set to mature in April 2021, but Pyramid asked for a temporary moratorium on payments early in the pandemic, when a default appeared imminent. The two sides reached a standstill agreement in June 2020, extending the loan’s maturity date.
But Pyramid failed to make good on its payments this past fall, according to the foreclosure suit, and the loan went into default, despite a forbearance agreement entered into in October of 2022. Pyramid was notified of the default in November of last year.