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With a $170,000 water and sewer bill in arrears, the question is: will the Lycoming Mall sale to FamVest be finalized before the property ends up in sheriff's sale in November?
Prospective buyers, FamVest, are planning to have the purchase completed before that time.
"I just spoke with LCWSA (Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority), we are not concerned because the potential sheriff sale (scheduled for November) is well beyond our outside closing date," said Jon Jahanshahi, president of FamVest Partners and executive vice president of Acquisition for HFL Corp.
The mall's current owner, Kohan Retail Investment Group, which owns it under the name Lycoming Mall Realty Holding, has been delinquent in their water and sewer payments before and previously were threatened with sheriff's sale. Kohan made a partial payment recently, according to Christine Weigle, LCWSA executive director, but not enough to resolve the issue and halt the move forward to sheriff's sale.
"They paid us in full last year. In May of last year, there was a sheriff's sale was going through. Then payments ceased over the past year, and then they made a small payment in April," Weigle said.
"So we really have no choice but to continue to go through the process. That small payment
unfortunately wasn't enough to stop our process," she said.
"For us to go through a sheriff's sale, there's a significant number of legal steps that you have to go through before you reach that point. So it's a long process," she said "So we're just in the middle of that process."
If the sale closes before the sheriff's sale then the amount due for the utilities, like water, sewer, electric or gas, are disclosed on the Housing and Urban Development statement. They are then resolved at closing, according to Weigle.
"So we're certainly hopeful that that closing happens long before November. Obviously our authorities would like to see something positive happen there. So the sooner they close, the better but if something happens and that sale happens to fall through, we're continuing to secure our position with that property. And that targeted time frame would be the November sheriff sale," Weigle said.
Jason Fink, president and CEO of the Williamsport/Lycoming Chamber of Commerce, said that he's "not surprised that the current owner isn't making any payments because he will be selling the property."
"From the water authority side of it, if I were them, until it closes, you take it to sheriff's sale. I hate to say it this way, but there have been deals that everyone was all good and comfortable with everything and deals fall through from that side of it," Fink said.
"If I'm the water authority, I'm protecting my interests," he said.
Fink, who has been in communication with the buyers, said, "They're still looking to close. They're targeting the end of this month now, so long as a couple of the things they've been working on get satisfied they should be able to close."
"The buyer has shared with us that they are still moving forward with being able to purchase it off the current owner, but I always throw it out there that there are deals that people had all intentions of closing and for whatever reason those deals didn't get done," Fink said.
Originally, closing on the mall had been expected earlier this year.
"We're happy that the potential buyer is interested in developing it because that's the best case scenario. The scenario we're under now is you have an owner, who's not very engaged with the local community. And so we're hopeful that the sale happens quickly and we start to see that property get reused and repurposed for something positive for our community," Weigle said.
Although she is optimistic that the sale will go through before the November date, Weigle said that the LCWSA is moving forward with the sheriff's sale.
"Remember last year, there was a sale that was supposed to happen and it fell through, so our board needs to secure our position for the rest of our customer base," Weigle said.