(Radio Iowa) – The City of Marshalltown has dropped its lawsuit against the owner of the Marshalltown Mall — and it appears the mall is under new ownership. Some tenants began exiting the property a year ago and setting up their businesses in other locations after electricity to the mall was cut off due to unpaid bills. Tenants that stayed have paid the utility directly for their electric use. Marshalltown Mayor Joel Greer says the city went to small claims court, seeking payment of a 65-hundred dollar fine from the mall’s owner for code violations, but that’s been withdrawn to pave the way for the mall’s sale to a Texas based investment firm.

“I found out last Friday there had been a closing scheduled a couple of times before and it kept getting postponed,” he says, “and the title opinion had one glitch in it and the glitch was that we had a pending lawsuit against the current owner.” Greer says he’s not optimistic the city will be able to collect the fines from the New York based investment group that has owned the mall. “The real choice boiled down to do we care enough as a city to get a judgement against them, have go to court, have an appeal, have a process of probably $6500 in legal fees and court costs,” Greer says, “and then try to collect a judgement, which given this company’s history in other states, good luck getting a judgement against some LLC or corporation that is out of state.”

According to social media posts, the new owners of the Marshalltown Mall have begun communicating with current tenets.