Signature Associates

Developers outline plans for Timbers Town Center

Posted By: Toledo Blade on August 16, 2026.  For more information, please click here to read the source article.

The Shops at Fallen Timbers are a canvas on which Tim Rollins is hoping to paint a masterpiece.

“The property has been somewhat neglected over the last 10 years by the guys who owned it out of New York,” said Mr. Rollins, a leader in the Timbers Town Center consortium that purchased the Maumee mall in July.

“They haven’t done a lot of deferred maintenance; the sidewalks are in pretty rough condition, and the landscaping isn’t looking great. There’s a lot of empty storefronts. None of that contributes to a great customer experience when people come to a project. It is not what they expect to see.”

The developer said he wants to attack those issues. He said this will bring the shopping center, soon to be called Timbers Town Center, back to a “class A” facility that’s attractive to consumers.

The total cost of the project is $89 million. According to Lucas County records, the purchase price of the property was $17,324,750. The previous owners, Mason Asset Management and Namdar Realty Group, paid $21 million for the property in 2017.

Though the sale of the property recently closed, Mr. Rollins said he is already in advanced talks with several businesses to occupy some of the property’s about 30 vacant storefronts. Many have signed or are in the process of signing letters of intent.

He said announcements on this front will be made soon.

“It’s for roughly half the empty space,” Mr. Rollins said. “There will be work under way to start getting those storerooms ready for the new businesses. Our plan is to have at least a couple of those in place and open before the end of the year and a whole lot of new businesses open during the course of 2027.”

Like others involved in the consortium that bought Fallen Timbers, Mr. Rollins has experience building up Columbus’ Easton Town Center mall and property. He said that while there are some key differences between the Columbus property and the Maumee property, building a multiuse shopping development has a lot of basic underlying tenets you have to get right.

“Fundamentally, there’s a notion of creating inviting places that present well to the public, and have an interesting mix of tenants and businesses and restaurants and entertainment options,” he said. “That is the same between these two projects, and we think that the skill set the development team brings to this redevelopment program is a pretty solid one.”

The work on the project is expected to take most of the next two years. Most aspects, such as work on the streets and sidewalks, will begin as soon as possible, with most of the work occurring in 2027.

At the mall, pedestrians and employees are staying upbeat and looking ahead to what the future might bring.

“They’ve done a pretty good job keeping us in the loop,” said Ashley Crawford, a manager at Victoria’s Secret, about talk of the mall’s sale.

She has been manager at the store for about a year and commutes from Toledo. Ms. Crawford said that the sidewalks are one thing that jumps out to her as needing fixed.

“We have some major potholes, but it’s all kind of in the plan, and now that stuff is signed, the ball can get rolling,” she said.

Ms. Crawford also acknowledged the complex’s empty storefronts, which are immediately apparent when walking or driving through the Fallen Timbers’ “main street.” She says there are certain retail stores that the Toledo market does not currently have, which she feels would do well in the future Timbers Town.

“I would love a Doc Martens or an Aritzia, but I don’t know if that is going to happen,” she said. “I know a lot of people are hoping for a Zara or an Aritzia or an Urban Outfitters.”

Lauren O’Hair, cosmetics manager at Dillard’s, said that perhaps the new tenants at Timbers Town should go beyond simple retail.

“The word that has kind of spread around is that it is going to be more an experiential fill of those storefronts first,” said Ms. O’Hair, who lives near the mall in Whitehouse. “They’re looking at potentially more studios as far as yoga, dance. I believe there was some talk of a Pins location coming in … some things that are going to bring people out that are going to be a little more active versus retail.”

Ms. Crawford and Ms. O’Hair both described their stores as “destinations” that people tend to come to for a certain item rather than just to browse. Sometimes these people come from farther away places like Bowling Green, Findlay, or Fostoria, which don’t have a wealth of shopping options.

“There’s not a lot of commercial buildup out here,” Ms. O’Hair said. “… Waterville, Whitehouse, they don’t want to see that commercial buildup. However, we are so far from anything; we do want to see some things come in this area.”

Zoey Ludwig and Emily Amstutz, who were walking around the mall together on a recent gloomy Thursday, remembered Fallen Timbers with fondness, as it had been a decade ago.

“Everything was open, all the shops were open, the movie theater was always busy,” said Ms. Ludwig, an Anthony Wayne High School graduate. “It is definitely depressing knowing what it looked like before.”

The women agreed that when the mall is alive again, people will rush back. Ms. Amstutz named several stores she would like to see in the complex, including Alo, Pac Sun, and American Eagle.

They also thought a gym should return to the complex, which it is missing after Maxx Fitness closed.

“It was our favorite gym ever,” Ms. Amstutz said. “Everyone and their mothers went back.”

“There was a big community that came to work out here,” Ms. Ludwig said.

A place to live     

A residential component to the project is also planned. Frank Kass, chairman of Continental Development Ventures, said this component of the project is planned to come together on a timeline of about 20 months.

“Maumee is a terrific little community,” Mr. Kass said. “It is upwardly mobile, and putting nice apartments adjacent to retail and restaurants is just a good thing to do.

Unlike some of his counterparts in the Timbers Town consortium, Mr. Kass has extensive experience in the Toledo market. Notable projects he and his firm have had their hands in are the redevelopment of Glass City Center, the Marina District in East Toledo, and the Colony Lofts near ProMedica Toledo Hospital.

Mr. Kass says the latter two have occupancy rates near 100 percent and have been successful ventures.

Though plans are not finalized yet, the developer said he is looking at building around 230 units, possibly on what was once Fallen Timbers’ outer ring of parking lots.

“We understand the market,” Mr. Kass said. “Apartments belong near what I call drivers. Being near downtown or on the river is a driver. Apartments being next to a hospital with nearly 6,000 employees on a freeway is a driver. In this case, being in the community like Maumee where young people would like to live and older people could sell their homes and retire to live in an apartment walking distance to 10 different places to eat and 30 different places to shop and exercise and do whatever. That’s a great driver.”

One reason Mr. Kass says he believes in the project is because of how resilient he has seen it be.

“The center went bankrupt in 2010,” he said. “Then it was in receivership for seven years … As bad as that was, a neglected center, many of the tenants stayed. The restaurants stayed, the movie theaters just spent a lot of money redoing itself. There’s a good hotel at the back of that that spent a lot updating itself.

“What we are going to do is add a lot more restaurants, really fix up the town square and the theater,” Mr. Kass said.