Hundreds of apartments. A call center. Karcher Mall’s new owner unveils his plans
Karcher Mall’s new owners want to get the place jumping again — literally.
Plans for the mall unveiled this week show that the owners want to build a 30,000 square-foot trampoline park, plus a 50,000 square-foot call center.
The owner, Rhino Investments of Livermore, California, also plans to break the mall building in two by demolishing 81,000 square feet in the middle for new parking. To the south, Rhino would build 216 apartments spread across nine buildings.
“It just needs to be revitalized,” said Rhino Investments CEO Sanjiv Chopra at a meeting of the Nampa Development Corp., the city’s urban renewal agency, on Tuesday. “It needs help. It needs a jolt.”
Karcher Mall, 1509 Caldwell Blvd., opened in 1965. The 367,000-square-foot mall has struggled for years as sales decline at brick-and-mortar retailers. Major department stores like Macy’s, formerly The Bon Marché, and the Burlington Coat have since moved from Karcher to other locations.
As of December 2018, nearly a third of the mall’s retail spaces were empty — almost triple the overall Nampa vacancy rate of 10%. Walking through the mall on a recent Monday felt like a trip through abandoned suburbia: voices echoed in barren halls, the bathroom lights eerily flickered on and off.
Towns throughout the country have struggled to retrofit their hulking, hollowed-out malls. Many have been bought by new owners like Rhino who want to retrofit cavernous department store spaces with other large-footprint businesses, like fitness centers and offices.
Chopra hopes to transform Karcher Mall into a big-box “lifestyle center.”
“Expected changes include bringing in a fitness facility, a new grocer, several soft goods retailers, new restaurants, new entertainment facilities, call centers and residents residing in the multifamily components,” he wrote in a memo to the urban renewal agency.
This week, Chopra told the agency’s board that the first part of the project would cost about $30 million. He asked the agency to reimburse him $1.5 million over the next 10 years to help pay for the multifamily housing and parking lot construction.
Chopra said he aims to complete the demolition, plus paving the new parking areas, curbs and landscaping, by December 2019.
While Chopra’s firm has redeveloped vacated big-box retailers like K-Marts and Sears, Karcher will be his first time transforming an entire mall.
Chopra said his company intends to keep the mall in its portfolio. “My intent is to redevelop the whole property and to keep it as a whole,” he said. “We never really build anything to sell it.”
David Bills, chair of the Nampa Development Corp. board, said during the meeting that he’s happy to work with Chopra as the project evolves. The board has not decided whether to reimburse Chopra.
“We’re thankful that someone is looking to redevelop the Karcher Mall,” he said.
The Idaho Press first reported of the plans for the mall.
This story was originally published July 25, 2019 at 3:18 PM.
