Fadco buys half of Silver City Mall

The portion of the Silver City Mall that is home to Office Depot, Sav-On Drugs and Ming's Chinese Restaurant will be remodeled or upgraded by the California real estate investment company that bought it Monday, according to the firm's president.

Don Gaube, president of Fadco L.L.C., said Fadco's purchase of the western half of the mall at Carson Street and Fairview Drive is one of the company's last transactions linked to the bankruptcy of Ernst Home Center Inc.

"This is one of 87 (leases on) properties we acquired from Ernst," Gaube said Tuesday from the company headquarters in Alamo, Calif.

Ernst had a hardware store on the east end of the mall, on property leased from the mall's then-owner, Tsutomu "Tom" Wakimoto. The Ernst corporation liquidated in 1996-97, with Fadco buying the unexpired leases for locations throughout the West.

"There will be no immediate changes and everyone will remain in their present locations for now," Gaube said.

He said it is too soon to say whether any remodeling of the Fadco properties would be influenced by the design of the Lowe's Home Improvement store that will be built on the eastern side of the mall. The walk-through mall east of Sav-On and the former Ernst building will be demolished to make way for a new Lowe's Home Improvement store and its parking lot.

He confirmed that there have been discussions of possible changes regarding the Sav-On store, including either remodeling the current location to change the amount of floor space or relocating it into a new store in the mall's southwest corner, where Ming's now stands. But such discussions are very preliminary, he said.

"I don't want to say anything to hurt Ming's business - they have been very cooperative in our discussions leading up to the purchase," Gaube said.

He also confirmed that Fadco did not buy the property where Big Al's Pizza is located. That is still owned by Sheila Ramsden of Dayton, whose family sold the rest of the land for the mall to Wakimoto.

Ramsden said Tuesday that she had been approached by Fadco about the property, but that she still owns the small parcel and building where the pizza restaurant is and that business owner "Big Al" Rogers will continue to operate there.

Fadco paid about $2.23 million for the west end of the Silver City Mall starting at Sav-On's east wall and excluding Ramsden's property. The purchase involved about 5.5 acres.

"We take these properties and upgrade or redevelop them and lease them back out. Typically we retain ownership of them," Gaube said. "We've been doing this throughout the West for the past 15 years."