Lamar Companies buys distressed Alamance Crossing, new tenants sign leases

Lamar Companies has taken control of Alamance Crossing, the 456,742-square-foot open-air center that helped define eastern Burlington retail for nearly two decades, and the company says new leases are already being signed as it pushes a renovation-led turnaround.

The purchase, completed in April 2025 with Real Capital Solutions, gave Lamar a property that was about 80% occupied but physically distressed. The center sits at Piper Lane and Waltham Boulevard, near the Interstate 85 and Interstate 40 interchange, a location Lamar has pointed to as one of its biggest advantages for drawing shoppers from Burlington, Alamance County and the Greensboro area.

Alamance Crossing opened on August 1, 2007, with major fanfare as Burlington’s largest shopping center. Its original anchors included Belk and JCPenney, with later additions such as Dillard’s and Barnes & Noble. Today, Lamar lists Dillard’s, Belk, JCPenney and Kohl’s among the property’s anchors, underscoring that the center still held onto the retailers that matter most even as its financial condition unraveled.

That unraveling was long and public. Alamance Crossing filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2020, then defaulted on a nearly $51 million loan in 2021. The center went into receivership in March 2023, and a visiting superior court judge approved a $38.5 million sale in January 2025 before Lamar’s deal was finalized later that year. County tax records had listed the property’s assessed value at about $50.6 million, a reminder of how far the distressed sale fell below the number attached to the site in local records.

Lamar has framed its move as a value-add investment, not a simple change in ownership. The company has said it plans aggressive capital improvements and leasing initiatives to reinvigorate the site, and a grand reopening is scheduled for May 30, 2026, after a yearlong renovation effort. The question now is how much of the project becomes a true revival for eastern Burlington, with more traffic, jobs and retail options, and how much is simply the next round of lease-up at a center that was already mostly full when Lamar bought it.