As 2000 dawned, a New York investment group named Sharpstown Center Associates owned the mall. By 2001, the mall was seized in a foreclosure, and Travelers Insurance took ownership of the mall, whose JCPenney anchor space remained vacant when it was announced that Montgomery Ward would close all its locations, including the Sharpstown store, as part of its liquidation process. The loss of Montgomery Ward would leave Foley's as the mall's only remaining anchor tenant, if not the only remaining original tenant from the mall's 1961 opening. Burlington Coat Factory would move from an adjacent shopping center to fill the former Montgomery Ward space.