PREIT, a real estate firm which owns various local malls including the Willow Grove Park Mall, recently announced that it plans to to convert many of its properties to make way for the development of 7,000 apartments.

According to a Philadelphia Business Journal interview with PREIT’s CEO Joseph Coradino, PREIT is looking to convert and sell underused land adjacent to its malls, including parking lots, to development firms. Other possible use of PREIT land could be for medical, life sciences and hotel spaces.

A motivating factor behind the apartment development has been insolvency: PREIT has sold off more than 20 malls in the past two decades, and adding apartments is part of a strategy to rebuild PREIT’s value after the company had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2020.

Glenside Local reached out to a PREIT representative to ask for details pertaining to Willow Grove Park Mall. We were told that details specific to each PREIT-owned mall are forthcoming, and at this time the PBJ interview is the extent of their public information.

The interview between PREIT and Philadelphia Business Journal can be found here.

Photo courtesy of Malls and Retail Wiki