Wells Fargo Buys Mall For $100

(RTTNews) - Wells Fargo Bank has bought a 1.1 million-square foot mall in Pennsylvania for an unbelievable price of $100.

The bank was the only bidder for the property at an auction. The Pittsburgh-area mall was foreclosed after its owners failed to repay $143 million to the bank. The transaction was a consensual foreclosure in a sense Wells Fargo "essentially brought the mall from itself."

Wells Fargo bought the facility in an attempt to revive it or sell it at a more respectable price.

The mall, which opened in 2005, was once worth $190 million but recently was appraised at just $11 million, according to the Post-Gazette. Pittsburgh Mills is now slightly more than half occupied, according to reports.

During the past few years, most of the shopping malls are struggling to keep up with shift in consumer's taste, as online shopping giants like Amazon and eBay have lured off customers from brick-and-mortar stores.