City of Milwaukee wants Northridge Mall torn down

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The city of Milwaukee has issued an order demanding the Northridge Mall property get torn down.

The building closed in 2003 and sold to a Chinese ownership group who promised to develop the building, but nothing happened.

It now has a slew of problems costing about $6-million in repairs.

"Unfortunately, dangerous unabated code violations exist in the portion of the mall that is not owned by the city of Milwaukee, and the work required to repair the building far exceeds the value of the building," Mayor Tom Barrett. "The legal threshold to issue a raze order has been met."

City leaders say because the building is vacant, it attracts crime, such as, vandalism, break-ins and theft. They add things got worse after a YouTube star filmed the winter wonderland video there, a couple years ago.

“It has been like Pandora’s Box, so now we have a lot more people coming in and tagging trying to mimic that video, providing stunts. We see a lot of homelessness that been happening, as well as, someone was setting shopping carts on fire inside the building,” said Alderwoman Chantia Lewis.

The ownership group has to start repairs or demolish the building within 20 days, or the city will take action itself.