HORSE CAVE Horse Caves only major retail shopping center is up for grabs. Herron Auction & Realty will hold an absolute auction at 1 p.m. Aug. 24 of the Jent Factory Outlet Mall and 10 commercial out lots. There is a sale preview from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday. Property owner Darrell Jent declined to comment on the sale. All of the existing leases will remain intact with the sale, according to auctioneer Ralph Wallace of Herron Auction and Realty in Henderson. At one time, there were 32 stores, Hart County Property Valuation Administrator Mary Beth Bunnell said. About half of the stores have left, she said. But Wallace said the property still has great potential. Its a prime location on Interstate 65 that has millions of tourists passing by each year, Wallace said. There are at least 62,000 cars that pass by each day, he said. Assessed value of the mall and 54 surrounding acres was $3.5 million for 2000, Bunnell said. Other neighboring property owned by the Jents also will be auctioned and those tracts combined were assessed at $793,000.While the land surrounding the mall is valuable, not much has sold there in the last two years. In 1996, a development company bought a 3.2-acre tract of land to build a Hampton Inn Hotel across the street from the mall and paid $352,500 for the property, Bunnell said. We havent had anything sell in the last couple of years, Bunnell said. I feel like if the mall sells and whoever buys it commits themselves to bring the stores back in, I feel like it will see a lot of traffic. Wallace said his company has received numerous calls from across Kentucky and even outside the state about the auction. The mall property has high visibility from I-65 and is located just across the interstate from Kentucky Down Under and Kentucky Caverns. It also is nine miles from Mammoth Cave National Park. Additionally, the next nearest mall is about 35 miles away in Bowling Green. Mall patrons, while there only were a handful Monday afternoon, would love to see it thrive once more. I would just as soon buy close to home, said Lois Jaggers, who has shopped at the mall since it opened in the early 1990s. I can stop on the way to work and its convenient.