OSHKOSH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – The Shops at Oshkosh was purchased for $12 million in September.
The outlet mall is right off I-41 and across from the EAA grounds. The mall previously faced foreclosure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The property was purchased by WOSHKOSH LLC, which was formed in August.
“Looking at the company name, we dug a little deeper, and it clearly states that this company is owned by Woodman’s Corporation,” said Oshkosh City Manager Mark Rohloff. “Obviously, that’s Woodman’s stores out of Janesville. Big grocery store chain here in Wisconsin.”
Woodman’s currently has two locations in Northeast Wisconsin — one in Grand Chute and one in Howard.
Rohloff said the city has limited information on what the future holds for the outlet property.
“We know that Woodman’s has been looking around for about five years, but we’ve had no contact with anyone from Woodman’s in about two years,” he explained. “I don’t know what that necessarily means, but certainly there’s been interest out there for a number of years, and we’ll see where this goes.”
From an informal count, the outlet mall has around 50 storefronts, with about 27 of them currently occupied by businesses.
Steven Deller, professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics at UW-Madison, said it’s perfectly normal.
Deller gave FOX 11 insight into the current state of outlet malls.
“One of the things that you’ll see in retail and a lot of service businesses is that there’s a lot of churn,” he said. “There’s businesses coming in and businesses leaving. That churn is actually good. It’s an indication that the economy is dynamic.”
Deller says it’s important to keep an eye on the property in the coming months to see what the future may hold.
“If you see the new owners come in and resurface the parking lot, that’s a major investment. That is essentially a vote of ‘we’re putting money into this, we want to keep it going.’ If you don’t see any of those kind of investments, then I think you can read the tea leaves and say that, you know, this is not a good sign. But we don’t know yet. Because we don’t know what the company is going to do,” he said.
FOX 11 reached out to Woodman’s and The Shops at Oshkosh but did not hear back.
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