The Westfield Trumbull Mall. Image courtesy of Google Maps

International mall operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield has announced its plans to exit the United States market and focus on its holdings elsewhere around the globe.

Westfield owns the Trumbull Mall and owned the Connecticut Post Mall in Milford until 2015 and the Meriden Mall until 2020. Both were sold to area investors.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Westfield’s plans. CEO Jean-Marie Tritant did not specifically mention the Trumbull property during a presentation to investors last week, but said the sale of its U.S. properties will help the company dramatically reduce its debt.

“We are city players. this is key to our future growth,” Chief Investment Officer Olivier Brossard said during the presentation. “We strongly believe that large cities and their mayors are forward-thining when it comes to development, mobility and sustainability.”

The mall operator hopes to use a playbook it’s deployed successfully at malls it owns in New Jersey, California and even at the Trumbull Mall: mixed-use development on mall parking lots and other parts of its properties.

In Trumbull’s case, that development took the form of a $60 million, 260-unit luxury apartment complex that broke ground last fall. The company has several large-scale, mixed-use redevelopment projects in the works like a 2.3 million-square-foot project in Hamburg, Germany. Westfield executives said during investor presentations last week that the company has already used this strategy to increase the value of its properties elsewhere before selling them off to investors like JPMorgan Chase.

Built-in 1965, the Westfield Trumbull Mall has added anchor store spaces over the years, plus an LA Fitness gym in a large outbuilding. Target Corp., Lord & Taylor parent company Hudsons Bay Corp. and JC Penny own their portions of the mall. The Lord & Taylor space has been vacant since early 2021, with its owners staying silent about future plans for the space.