Cooper Health Buys Former Sears in Moorestown Mall for Outpatient Facility

 By Linda Moss CoStar News

A healthcare chain has acquired the former Sears anchor store at a New Jersey mall where it plans to open an outpatient facility.

Cooper University Health Care purchased the 165,000-square-foot vacant department store at the Moorestown Mall in Moorestown, New Jersey, from Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, according to the broker on the sale, Markeim Chalmers of Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Terms of the transaction between Cooper and PREIT, which is based in Philadelphia, weren't disclosed.

In March, PREIT Chairman and CEO Joe Coradino announced his company and Cooper had executed a transaction for the outpatient location at the Moorestown Sears during a fourth-quarter earnings report. At the time, Coradino didn’t specify if Cooper was leasing the vacant Sears, which closed roughly a year ago, or buying it.

Cooper will transform the Sears space, which was home to the department store for decades, "into a state-of-the-art specialty care facility with an anticipated opening date in 2023."

"The landmark Moorestown Mall location has frontage on Route 38, ample parking and convenience to all major roadways," the brokerage said. "This project fits within PREIT’s business plans to expand and reposition its mall locations beyond retail. With the addition of the Cooper project alongside hospitality and housing development, this location will flourish and draw even greater regional use."

Back in March, Cooper said is was adding medical office space to meet the demand for its specialists at convenient locations near where consumers live.

Early this year PREIT, which emerged from Chapter 11 proceedings in December, said it was redeveloping Moorestown Mall and planned to add about 1,000 apartment units as well as a hotel to its Garden State retail property.

Like landlords across the country, the real estate investment trust is looking to create foot traffic and fill vacancies at its malls by adding nontraditional tenants, including healthcare and medical offices and facilities.

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