(INDIANAPOLIS) – Indy’s struggling Lafayette Square Mall is getting a new name, a new look, and, it hopes, a new future.
Indianapolis-based Weston Property Group bought the troubled shopping center last December. Fabio de la Cruz with parent company Sojos Capital plans a makeover to make it the centerpiece of a broader 120-acre redevelopment of the Lafayette Road corridor.
De la Cruz says rebuilding the surrounding neighborhood is the only way for the mall to survive. He says he’ll spend $200 million dollars to add high-tech security, and build a small concert venue, a youth soccer complex, a charter school a dog park, and a hotel at the mall’s former L.S. Ayres store. The mall itself will be renamed “Window to the World,” to integrate it with the nearby International Marketplace district. De la Cruz says he wants to make the area a destination, with the mall itself designed like a self-contained neighborhood for people to gather for meals or musical performances.
De la Cruz says he’s in negotiations to lock in an operator for the hotel and a new movie theater.
One piece of the redevelopment is already in progress. Indy Metro Police plan to open a new district headquarters in the neighborhood in February.
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