Yahoo Finance Belleville Crossing loses another tenant due to ‘uncertainty’ at shopping center
Family members who operate Jan’s Hallmark Shops have announced that they’re permanently closing their retail store at Belleville Crossing after 36 years of doing business in the city.
According to Jan’s owner Don Tschannen, being a tenant in the main strip mall of the troubled shopping center has been a constant challenge the past two years, with problems ranging from lack of trash pickup to water being turned off to lights not working in the parking lot.
Tschannen said it’s been virtually impossible to reach the owner, a Florida man facing civil lawsuits and criminal fraud charges, or the company that became the strip mall’s receiver in May 2023 due to loan defaults. The store has been operating without a lease for months.
“There’s just too much uncertainty,” said Tschannen, of Highland, whose family operates 14 other Hallmark stores in St. Louis and the metro-east.
“Our business is such that we have to make decisions months in advance. They’re getting ready to start shipping Christmas (merchandise) in the next 30 days. We can’t take in Christmas and then find out from the next landlord that we’re not going to have a home.”
Jan’s is headquartered in Maryville.
The Belleville store temporarily closed the day after Mother’s Day. Employees began packing up merchandise and fixtures.
Tschannen said he didn’t announce it at the time because he was still hoping to make a deal, move the store to a larger space in a different part of the strip mall and operate under a new owner, but that didn’t happen.
“(The closing is) horrible for our employees,” he said. “It’s horrible for our customers who have supported us for years, and it’s horrible for us. I go through great turmoil when I close a store. I don’t make that decision lightly.”
Jan’s opened its first Belleville store in 1988 and moved twice, most recently to Belleville Crossing in 2008.
The store employs about a dozen people. The Tschannen family posted a notice about its closing on Facebook, referring customers to locations in Columbia and Shiloh.
Belleville Crossing’s main strip mall is managed by Trigild, which began under owner Jonathan Larmore before a federal judge appointed it receiver. Representatives didn’t respond to multiple BND calls for comment.
Trigild is a national company with offices in Chicago, Dallas, San Diego, Miami and Monclair, New Jersey, according to its website.
‘It’s not a numbers problem’
Cliff Cross, Belleville’s director of economic development, planning and zoning, said problems at Belleville Crossing have been a major source of frustration, with Trigild representatives refusing to call anyone back, including city officials and potential new tenants.
“It’s bizarre,” he said.
Cross plans to investigate whether the city can take legal action to force Trigild to do a better job at maintenance and leasing and to perhaps even get the out-of-town receiver replaced by a local one.
Cross noted that the city has a financial interest in the shopping center. Half of property taxes in a tax-increment-financing district and an additional 1% sales tax in a business district are being used to reimburse it for $18 million in rebates given to developers in 2006.
“It’s not a numbers problem out there,” Cross said. “It’s a management issue and a response issue.”
By “numbers,” Cross means customers and foot traffic. He said one Belleville Crossing tenant in a national chain reports doing 30% more business at that location than at its Fairview Heights store.
Long lines are common at the Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers restaurant, which opened at Belleville Crossing in March 2023. Club Car Wash opened this spring, and Discount Tire plans to build a garage.
The shopping center covers about 50 acres northwest of Illinois 15 and Frank Scott Parkway. That includes the main strip mall, anchors Target and The Home Depot (which own their own properties) and outlots with smaller strip malls and free-standing restaurants and other businesses.
The main strip mall has been listed for sale since November, according to CBRE agent Michael Austry, who’s based in Dallas. The price is $7.8 million for 72,903 square feet of commercial space.
“We had it under contract, and that took a good two months, but now it’s back available again,” Austry said.
Strip mall opened in 2007
St. Louis-based The DESCO Group developed Belleville Crossing and opened it in 2007. Four years later, it sold the main strip mall and two smaller strip malls to two limited-liability companies formed under the umbrella of Phoenix-based Arciterra Companies, owned by Larmore and his family.
In recent years, tenants and city officials have complained about tall weeds, malfunctioning signs, overflowing trash receptacles and potholes in the parking lot. Several large storefronts are empty.
In May 2023, four investors sued Larmore and Arciterra’s other principal owners and executives in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois for allegedly failing to maintain the property, renew leases, fill vacancies or pay dividends, property taxes, insurance and utility bills.
Larmore and his family had been “diverting Company assets to fund their unbelievably lavish lifestyle,” stated the lawsuit, which the investors voluntarily dismissed without prejudice in October. It could be filed again.
Also in May 2023, First Guaranty Bank in Hammond, Louisiana, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, reporting that Larmore and 11 companies under the Arciterra umbrella had defaulted on more than $35 million in bank loans.
In November 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Larmore and Arciterra “entities” with fraud in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The civil lawsuit alleged a multiyear scheme to “misappropriate” more than $35 million in investor funds.
“Instead of protecting client assets, Larmore and his related entities took advantage of investor trust for his and his family’s personal gain,” SEC Asset Management Unit Co-chief Andrew Dean stated in a news release at the time.
In March, Larmore was indicted on criminal charges of tender-offer and securities fraud in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors alleged that he used a “sham company” to falsely announce a $77 million tender offer for shares of WeWork stock as part of a scheme he intended to lure a rush of investors, artificially inflating its value and potentially making him millions of dollars.
Larmore was most recently a resident of Punta Gorda, Florida, according to court records. He could face up to 20 years in federal prison on each of two criminal counts against him.
“Jonathan Moynahan Larmore’s alleged actions strike at the heart of market integrity and investor confidence,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams stated in a news release at the time he was charged.
“By allegedly orchestrating a deceptive scheme involving a counterfeit tender offer, he purportedly preyed upon investors, artificially inflating the value of WeWork stock for personal enrichment.”
Larmore couldn’t be reached for comment.
Through his company, Arciterra Group LLC, he owned at least 81 business properties in 26 states, according to his Linked-in page.
