The Westwood Mall is coming down before the year is out. The Marquette County Board voted unanimously on Oct. 20 to adopt a brownfield development plan for the shuttered mall in Marquette Township, clearing the way for a Green Bay developer to demolish the building by the end of 2026 and put up new commercial space on the site in 2027.
The vote followed a public hearing at the board’s regular Tuesday meeting. Nobody on the board argued for waiting.
“We couldn’t be more pleased to support Marquette Township, they have decades of cooperation with the county and we couldn’t be more pleased to get that blighted building torn down and have a new developer in Marquette County,” board chair Joe Derocha said after the vote.
What the plan covers
The plan calls for demolishing about 112,044 square feet of the mall building by the end of this year. Developer Garritt Bader of Green Bay then plans an initial commercial building of roughly 25,000 square feet, to be finished by the end of 2027. The plan doesn’t say who the tenants will be.
Not everything on the property is part of it. Kohl’s, Dunham’s and North Iron Church sit on separate parcels and are excluded, so those businesses stay put while the main mall structure is cleared around them.
How the financing works
The money side runs through a brownfield tax increment financing district that Marquette Township set up for the mall property. Township Supervisor Lyn Durant explained it this way: the parcel will be valued as vacant land on the 2027 tax roll, and the new owner keeps paying taxes on that vacant-land value for the life of the TIF. When new construction raises the property’s value, the township keeps only the original vacant-land share. The added tax from the higher value goes to the Brownfield Redevelopment Authority to pay back the developer’s demolition costs.
In other words, the township gives up the tax growth on the site for a set period in exchange for getting a large, collapsing building removed without paying for it directly.
“We believe this is a small price to pay to have a very visible eyesore removed and a wonderful new development take its place,” Durant said.
She also credited township staff and the developer. “Staff has worked so hard, our planning staff, our manager, everybody has really put a lot of time into this,” Durant said. “Garritt was a breath of fresh air to work with, the developer. We’re excited to have something happen with this.”
How the mall got here
The Westwood Mall on U.S. 41 West was once one of the main shopping stops for Marquette and the central Upper Peninsula. Like a lot of enclosed malls its size, it lost anchors and foot traffic over the past decade. Its owner, Kohan Retail Investment Group, spent nearly three years under scrutiny for overdue property taxes.
The end came this past winter. In February, sections of the roof collapsed under heavy snow, and the building has been closed since. For months the question in the township was less about whether the mall could be saved and more about who would pay to clear it.
The brownfield plan answers that. Michigan’s brownfield program lets local authorities use future tax revenue to cover cleanup and demolition on properties that are contaminated, blighted or functionally obsolete, and it’s been used on dead retail sites around the state.
What happens next
The timeline is tight. Demolition has to wrap up within about two months to hit the end-of-2026 target, in a part of the state where winter can arrive early. Shoppers headed to Kohl’s, Dunham’s or North Iron Church should expect construction activity on the property through the end of the year.
What gets built in the 25,000-square-foot first phase, and whether more follows, will depend on the tenants Bader can sign over the next year.
