ABOVE: The Five Lakes Centre Mall in Fairmont is under serious consideration for purchase by an individual from New Jersey. Retail Coach Representative Kyle Cofer said the individual has shown interest for around a year, and recently toured the property.

FAIRMONT – An update from The Retail Coach at Monday’s County Economic Development Authority (EDA) meeting revealed a deal in the works for the mall in Fairmont.

The Retail Coach Representative Kyle Cofer said the individual is from New Jersey and came to town two weeks ago to see the place for himself.

“If he can get things figured out with the commercial lenders, he is going to purchase the mall,” Cofer said, recalling a conversation he had with the potential buyer earlier that day.

With the mall in its current shape, Cofer said the buyer is aware of what can be done and what he wants to accomplish.

“He understands lease rates are tight,” Cofer said. “He’s not looking to get an absolute home run on this property. We also talked about some other opportunities for them. Bring in two other concepts, allow him to retain some of the existing users there, and improve lease rates.”

Board Member Tim Terfehr asked why the current owner of the mall doesn’t want to bring in any new tenants. Cofer said there’s a gap between the mall owner and potential tenants currently.

“The mall owner wants to bring in new tenants, but his requirements, and he’s not really willing to put any money into the existing space,” he said. “It’s not currently move-in ready for these tenants, and there’s just a big gap on what it would take. It’s been sitting there.”

The potential new owner knows this, and Cofer said he wants to put in the work to bridge the gap.

“This new potential buyer has told me he’s willing to get it to the point where it’s what we consider move-in ready for these purposes,” he said.

In addition to the mall, Cofer said a franchisee is looking to move a sandwich chain into Fairmont. The franchisee has a three-store agreement to put restaurants in St. Peter and Albert Lea, with Fairmont as the potential third.

“He said, ‘Look, I’m going to open a location in this market,'” Cofer said. “It’s within his franchise agreement. He has to do it, so we’re trying to do everything we can to speed him up. Continuing to pass sites around. We’ve passed the old Caver’s Realty building to him. We passed a few others [by him] as well.”

In speaking with this sandwich chain, as well as a burger chain that is interested, Cofer said existing spaces are hot commodities right now with the price of construction and materials. The former Starbucks and Caver’s Realty building at 1140 Torgerson Street has drawn a lot of attention as a result.

“We thought another user had locked this site up; that is not the case,” Cofer said. “It’s now back on the table.”

There was also a hardware store in talks to move to Fairmont, but Cofer said that is on hold because of rising costs due to tariffs. He said the store imports 90- to 95 percent of its goods from China.

“They are looking to, hopefully, when these tariffs get figured out, they can come hit the ground running,” Cofer said.

In other business:

— An update was made on submitting a SMIF Economic Development Grant. CEDA Consultant Celia Simpson said they want to use potential grant funds to host a workforce summit. In doing so, they would seek to bring businesses in and discuss how to resolve workforce shortage issues. Simpson said she’d like to do it at the Fairmont Event Center. Board Member Richard Koons said it could work, but something would have to be done with acoustics to ensure noise and echoing aren’t counterproductive.

— Martin County Schools were reached out to regarding potential career exploration services and employer connections to benefit Fairmont and Martin County. CEDA Consultant Amber Patten said three or four high schools have started communication, and CEDA is currently working with them.

— A grant was found to attempt to help the Martin County Veterans Memorial with its statue project. Unfortunately, the grand program had an overwhelming response of over 800 submissions and closed before CEDA could submit. Patten said thankfully, the grant reopens in November and the work they have already done will count toward their submission them.