The future of the Mall at Shelter Cove is again uncertain after plans to revive the ailing retail center with a stadium-seating movie theater fell through.
The mall's owners and town officials are discussing a variety of options for the site to solve the question of what to do about the struggling mall that has been losing tenants rapidly in recent years. Petrie Ross Ventures, the mall's Maryland-based owner, was hoping the movie theater would bring new life, but the plans evaporated when the company couldn't find financing for the plan, town manager Steve Riley said.
The owners are now scrambling to come up with a way to save the plan and avoid the mall from being put into receivership for its debts. Some of the proposals call for moving one of the anchor stores — Saks Off Fifth to the Tanger Outlets in Bluffton — and then shifting around other mall tenants to allow for significant remodeling in the mall; or putting in a new national chain store to serve as an anchor. But the Town Council may balk at a plan like that. Riley said council members approved the movie theater under special circumstances, but may not feel the same way about additional retail space. Riley said another idea being mentioned is "de-malling" the site by reconstructing it as an open-air shopping center looking out onto Broad Creek, and turning the storefronts into street-front spaces.
The controversy over the future of the site has stretched out for almost two years, but any decision about where to go from here will still require more consultation between the town and the mall's owners. Meanwhile, the Art League of Hilton Head was slated to move into a new space at the mall — part of the agreement the town required for the movie theater deal. But the group is holding off on the move for a few months to see what's in store for the mall.
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