Crain's: Northbrook Court's lender may be interviewing buyers for property

Northbrook Court may be up for sale, possibly raising doubts about the massive renovations in progress, Crain's Chicago Business is reporting.

Barings, the mall's lender, has been interviewing brokers, the report says, citing "people familiar with its plan." The mall's owner, Brookfield Properties, which also owns Oakbrook Center in Oak Brook, Water Tower Place in Chicago and Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee, stopped making mortgage payments months ago, according to Crain's.

Northbrook Court is in the process of a $250 million makeover approved two years ago by the village that includes a mix of retail and residential, but project was put on hold due to the pandemic, incoming Village President and current Trustee Kathryn Ciesla said in an interview leading up to the April 6 election.

"When COVID hit they decided to hold off for one year," Ciesla said at the time. "But now we're seeing the requests for the building permits coming in, and they're going to start with the construction of that outside portion where Macy's was. That's really exciting. I think it will tremendously help our economy. It's an investment in our community that didn't cost us; we did give them (tax-increment financing) but I think that it's going to be really, really great, and it's a good focus.

A tax increment financing district is an economic development tool that funnels property taxes above a certain dollar amount into public and private projects instead of local governments like schools, parks and the library.

Northbrook Court is important to village revenues - of the 30% of Northbrook revenues coming from sales taxes, Northbrook Court provides a third of that, Ciesla added.

When Crain's reached out for comment, Brookfield said in a statement: "We have engaged various stakeholders to determine a viable path forward for the property that best serves the interests of all invested parties." A company spokeswoman declined to answer further questions, and Barings representatives did not respond to Crain's requests for comment.