Lakeforest Mall owner wants to demolish mall sooner than planned

The now-shuttered Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg was not expected to be demolished until next year. But owner WRS Realty is now seeking to bring the building down much sooner. The rationale for waiting until 2024 was that the company would retain the fallback plan of reopening the mall, should the City of Gaithersburg not approve its plan to redevelop the site with thousands of residential units, along with new restaurants and retail. 

WRS Realty now says it would raze the mall sooner, if it could enter a binding contract with the City that provides a guaranteed right to redevelop the property, the Washington Business Journal reported this afternoon. If the City agrees, reporter Daniel J. Sernovitz wrote, it could speed up delivery of the new development by two years. The new plan by WRS Realty may explain why an auction of the mall's contents is now scheduled for next month. If WRS Realty were to reopen the mall, it would have to replace some amount of that stuff to do so.