Demolition of Northridge Mall completed as city seeks new uses

Demolition of the former Northridge Mall has been completed, and the city of Milwaukee will move onto the next phase of redevelopment.

City officials on Wednesday said they will seek developers and market the former mall site in 2026 after completing demolition near North 76th Street and West Brown Deer Road. In January 2024, the city acquired the mall through tax foreclosure after a yearslong legal battle with its China-based owners.

“We committed to doing this a little over a year ago, and we’re proud to show our community that promise. The mall has come down,” said Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson at a news conference. “Today it stands as a symbol of what can be on the northwest side of the city.”

Before acquisition, city officials and first responders called the former mall a drain on resources. Built in the 1970s and closed in the early 2000s, the former mall saw trespassing, fires and the death of a maintenance worker. The former ownership group, U.S. Black Spruce Enterprise, was not responsive to the city’s calls to secure the site.

The city now controls more than 50 acres, and officials said they will engage the surrounding neighborhood and developers to get an idea of what redevelopment will look like. No plans for new buildings have been introduced yet. Demolition was on time and on budget, officials added.

Veit & Co. led demolition and flattened the mall with excavators before hauling debris away, leaving a flat surface with some mounds of ground rubble. A total of 39 companies, including 21 in Milwaukee and 17 in southeastern Wisconsin, worked on the project. Around 60% of those who worked on-site were Milwaukee residents, Johnson said.

The teardown was supported by the state of Wisconsin, which provided $15 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding. The act was signed by former President Joe Biden.

Officials said this is the largest contiguous development site in the city and the city is working with local partners such as Milwaukee 7, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. and the Granville Business Improvement District to find an anchor user.

WEDC provided a $100,000 capacity-building grant to help plan the mall’s future. GRAEF is the city’s engineering consultant for redevelopment.

The city will look for a large anchor user that will create jobs, grow the tax base and spur additional development in the surrounding area, said Lafayette Crump, commissioner of the Department of City Development.

The city will create a redevelopment report that will share potential future uses of the site, officials said. That report will be released “in the coming months,” they added.

The city will gather community input to shape future development and will conduct public engagement to create a plan for the site, said Alderwoman Laressa Taylor at the news conference.
The public will supply a “large pool of ideas,” Crump added.

Excavators have spent much of the year chipping away at the former Northridge Mall. In January 2024, a Milwaukee judge gave control of Northridge Mall to the city through tax foreclosure. In 2019, the city issued a raze order after a maintenance worker was electrocuted, which Black Spruce fought in court.

Over the years, the mall has been targeted by trespassers, vandals and urban explorers. It gained new attention on social media after content creator Casey Neistat posted about it in December 2017.