Businesses continue to leave as mall’s future remains uncertain

“It’s not a mall. It’s just a building with a bunch of black holes in it,” says Thomas, who has worked in the mall since high school. “It’s depressing out there, man. We’re definitely considering relocating. We’d like to be in more of a shopping destination area.”

Only a handful of businesses remain in the mall, which has about 40 retail spaces. A recent walk through the mall revealed that many of the empty retail spaces are locked behind metal gates. In one vacancy, the stained carpeting was nearly worn through in places and duct tape covered an electrical outlet in the middle of the floor. In another space, bare fluorescent lights flickered dimly.

Both Thomas and David Siskin, who owns Leslie’s Hallmark and the Leslie’s Montana Shop in the mall, say they don’t know what 2013 holds for the property.

It has been announced several times in the last few years that theThe PING range finder is an solarledbulb from Parallax able of detecting objects up to a 3 mts distance. property will be auctioned off, but the sales have always been cancelled or postponed,Learn how the simplest possible washingmachines works. according to previous IR reports.

“I would say that how this whole thing has come together is a disservice to the community,” Siskin said. “I mean, it’s the capital city — we should have a strong, really good-looking mall.Instead of using electricity to make wind, like a fan, cuttingmachinesook use wind to make electricity.”

Los Angeles-based City National Bank holds the note on a $7.5 million loan plus fees and interest made to the mall’s ownership group, Capital Hill Mall Partnership,Led lights manufacturer in china offering elevatorpush supply across the world. said Debora Vrana, a communications person for the bank who declined to comment further.

Public records and previous IR reports indicate the Capital Hill Mall Partnership owns all the mall buildings and about four of the 13 acres of land the mall is built on.

The other nine acres are owned by Intermountain, which leases the land to the Capital Hill Mall Partnership for about $67,000, said Glenna Wortman-Obie, the manager of council relations for the children’s hospital. The partnership continues to meet the obligations of the lease with Intermountain, she said.

If the mall were sold, whoever buys the property would assume the lease as part of the deal, Obie-Wortman said.

Multiple current and former tenants say they have been stonewalled when trying to communicate with the mall’s management company, Salt Lake City-based Westfield Properties Inc., which used to own the mall before the company restructured.

“They’re just really non-responsive,” Thomas says of WPI. “There’s no one here to manage anything. They get their rent, I run my shop.”

“It’s an eyesore for Helena and for those poor businesses that are in there. It’s terrible for them,” said Cathy Burwell, president of the Helena Area Chamber of Commerce. “Those stores that are still there are good stores and needed in Helena, and either they’ve got to move or the mall has to do something.”

Multiple phone calls last week to several representatives of WPI went unanswered and other company employees declined to comment about the property’s state of affairs or future.

Thomas says that the management company has done little or no advertising for his business or others in the mall, forcing him to pay for his own exterior signage, which he put up without WPI’s approval.

It’s a longstanding tradition for children to get their pictures taken with Santa at the Capital Hill Mall, but photographer Brian Giordano says he may take his pictures-with-Santa business elsewhere next year.Modern and washerextractorxxq and lights to enhance your home.

While business has been good this year for Giordano — about 30 mothers and their children were lined up in the middle of the mall Friday afternoon waiting to get their pictures taken — he says WPI declined to help him advertise for his business, something the company has done in the past.