The Crossings Mall in Elkview is scheduled for the auction block later this month.
The notice of a foreclosure sale was published in Monday's Gazette-Mail and confirmed by Martin Perry, a managing director at Newmark Grubb Knight Frank's Pittsburgh office, who was appointed as receiver of the property last month in U.S. Southern District Court.
The legal notice advertising the trustee's sale doesn't list a minimum bid, only that the property will be sold at public auction "to the highest bidder" on Jan. 24 at 1:30 p.m. on the steps of the Kanawha County Courthouse.
Perry is in charge of overseeing the planning and construction of a new culvert bridge into the Crossings Mall, which has been closed and inaccessible to the public since massive floods swept through West Virginia on June 23.
With dozens of businesses forced to close since then and roughly 500 people out of work, the owner, Tara Retail Group, subsequently defaulted on a $13.6 million loan from its lender, U.S. Bank Association.
On Dec. 23, U.S. District Judge Thomas Johnston appointed Perry to take immediate possession and control of the property, to the relief of Kanawha County commissioners, who had received myriad complaints about the closed shopping center in the months after the floods.
In a Facebook post Wednesday, Commissioner Dave Hardy mentioned the upcoming trustee's sale of the property.
"The bank clearly plans to get its money back for the unpaid loan and the new bridge," Hardy wrote.
Johnston noted during last month's hearing that the odds of foreclosure were likely.
Tara Retail, which is headed by businessman Bill Abruzzino, could still file for bankruptcy up until the sale, which could further delay construction of the new bridge.
Perry said, if the property is sold at the trustee's sale, he'll still be involved in the bridge's construction.
"Our role would not change. We would still be focused on rebuilding the bridge, [putting tenants into] the center and getting it open to the public," Perry said.
He directed further questions about the trustee's sale to Pittsburgh attorney Chris Schueller, who's representing U.S. Bank Association. Schueller, however, would not discuss the upcoming sale Thursday.
Perry said he's working to award a bid for the new bridge to a contractor.
The engineering designs for the new bridge were completed by Potesta & Associates, but the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently made revisions to them, Perry said.
While previous reports estimated the cost of the new bridge to be around $700,000, that figure is now projected to be around $1 million.
"We had to rebid the project ... there was limited work done by the previous owner, and the bids they received were not accurate based on the revisions by the Army Corps of Engineers," Perry said.
He said he's received five competitive bids from contractors, and expects to award the project "very soon."
He's also been meeting with each of the shopping center's tenants, to determine a plan for returning to the center once the new bridge is installed.
"We're working with each tenant, to design a way they can come back, give them time to restock and open back up to the public." Perry said. "The large tenants are our top priority."
Kmart and Kroger are the two biggest tenants at Crossings Mall.
With an expected 12-week time frame to acquire the needed materials and construct the bridge, Perry said the goal is to have it completed by the end of March.
"A lot of prep work [has] to happen while waiting for the materials," Perry said. "There could be some delays due to weather, legal issues, things we cannot control."
Perry said he hopes to have Crossings Mall fully open again by mid-summer.
Reach Elaina Sauber at elaina.sauber@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-3051 or follow @ElainaSauber on Twitter.