I'm sure they got that mall really, really cheap. Here's the current store list.[1] They're down to 22 small tenants, including the co-working space and the model train club.
Serious pivot: there are a lot of hobby, public-service, and charitable organizations which could use permanent, cheap space with minimal features: woodworking and craft groups, maker spaces, library branches, model train clubs, indoor community gardening, political party offices, various service organizations. Why is there no efficient strategy to get them into the large number of empty mall spaces?
That's not uncommon, it's just that it usually presages the malls being sold and torn down because they aren't earning any money.