SYRACUSE, NY – Destiny USA is New York’s largest shopping center, a six-story building on Onondaga Lake. The main attraction is WonderWorks, a 40,000-square-foot theme park where children can experience a simulated earthquake, learn about space travel in an astronaut suit, or play a laser game.
That could be, until the state caused the mall to close many of its attractions for the second time last year in November to counter Covid-19. Only 18% of the space rented to entertainment tenants is currently open, a spokesman for the mall’s owner, Pyramid Management Cos, said.
Adding amusement park-like rides was a strategy Pyramid considered crucial in attracting pedestrians and reversing the years of struggles of retailers fighting online shopping. Now the strategy is less like a lifeline and more like a millstone.
Even as new pandemic measures allowed the mall’s stores to reopen, regulations kept many of the entertainment attractions closed. Privately owned Pyramid has borrowed heavily to expand and build entertainment extravaganzas in Destiny USA and another mall, Palisades Center in West Nyack, NY, and the bills are coming up.
In April, the Pyramid entities operating the two malls fell behind on securitized debt, called commercial mortgage-backed securities, or CMBS, according to real estate data provider Trepp LLC, and eventually negotiated renewals and postponements.