Mega Malls in trouble: No surprise to me.

[jazzjunkysue]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/General-Growth-files-for-rb-14945510.html

General Growth files largest U.S. real estate bankruptcy

Thursday April 16, 2009, 12:17 pm EDT

By Ilaina Jonas and Emily Chasan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Growth Properties Inc, the second-largest U.S. mall owner, declared bankruptcy on Thursday in the biggest real estate failure in U.S. history.

Ending months of speculation, General Growth, along with 158 of its 200-plus U.S. malls, filed Chapter 11 while it tries to refinance its debts.

But the ongoing global financial crisis made it impossible for General Growth to restructure outside of bankruptcy and could signal further troubles for other financial institutions who are General Growth creditors.

The collapse underscores the pressure on U.S. commercial real estate with few sources of available funding.

Chicago-based General Growth, which owns such valuable properties as South Street Seaport in New York, Fashion Show in Las Vegas and Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, listed total assets of $29.56 billion and total debts of $27.29 billion.

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I've always resented these hulking cement cities for emptying out our main streets and adding a middle man to the cost of doing business: Mall rent is criminally high, pushing out all local businesses.

Have you ever seen a local small business that could make the rent for more than a few months in a mall? I mean, other than a tiny shoe repair closet?

So, they put our small businesses out of work and then fold up, leaving these ugly cement hulks littering our suburbs.

The europeans are smarter than us: They limit these nasty imposters and keep their inner cities thriving and their main streets open.

[NJmaverick]

1. From what I read on Bllomberg, it's not the malls as much as terrible financial management

that sunk them.

[tammywammy]

4. Yes. The malls around here that were owned by a company that filed bankruptcy

Are almost fully rented out. They don't expect any to be closing, while the property owner restructures or even if it's sold to a new owner.

[girl gone mad]

12. It's a combination of both.

With 20% of the nation's malls going under, you can't just blame "financial management".

[backscatter712]

2. Whoopee! More ghost malls!

Hope towns have blight plans in place to deal with them...

[glinda]

3. Affordable apartments for families with pets???????

[intheflow]

13. Exactly what I was thinking!

Affordable housing, that is, though not too sure about the pet part. Just because I see how little people pick up after their pets just around my block. I shudder to think of that extended to the indoor shared spaces in a mall.

[opihimoimoi]

5. Soup kitchens and housing for the homeless

[sinkingfeeling]

6. I don't think I've been inside a mall in the last two years. They all seem to have the exact same

stores across the nation. I miss variety of browsing through unique shops.

[WCGreen]

7. stores such as that require organic growth..

They really can't spawn from a group of MBA's trying to figure out a marketing plan...

That's the problem with Malls and sameness, they are forced on people and not of the people. It does make a difference.

[bbernardini]

8. I guess this is a good place to plug Dead Malls.com

http://www.deadmalls.com/

I have nothing to do with this site, but I find it fascinating.

[get the red out]

9. Mall blight

Big dead mall across the street from me. It used to be a great place to shop, but a new, spread-out shopping center ate up a horse farm in the same general part of town and the mall was reduced to a big empty box. No one can get the owners to do anything with it, it is an eyesore. And the land is wasted as well as the horse farm (as far as I am concerned). That shopping center is so hard to get around in that I would rather order online and pay shipping than drive a few miles and try to get from store to store.

[Jane Austin]

21. If your avatar is a real Yeller Dog,

you can order for him from a mom and pop pet supply and gift store owned by a DUer!

www.dogstuff.com

Y'all come!

[underpants]

10. Thomas Friedman's wife is the heir to a mall dynasty

well it isn't a dynasty anymore. Things are a bit flat as they say.

[MrPerson]

22. The cabbie told me to invest in them.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

11. I have seen a few

I went out to Ontario Mills recently and there are more cell phone kiosks that ever before and lots of empty stores, I am really missing Steve and Barry's. Closer to home The Block at Orange is also emptying out, one of my favorite restaurants is in there and a solid third of the stores are gone.

[byronius]

14. Dead Malls is an interesting site.

[chollybocker]

15. Someone should send this to Michael Steele.

He claims the malls are packed.

[nichomachus]

16. Actually, Faneuil Hall Marketplace revitalized a dying area of downtown in Boston

It's not a "hulking cement city." It revitalized one of the most historic areas of Boston and the US. I can remember when the marketplace area was extremely seedy and rundown. The only time you went there was if you worked the graveyard shift or were stoned or drunk and needed something eat early in the morning.

[jazzjunkysue]

20. I was there last week, and it's perfect for the area. But most suburbs

hold these malls, and then become empty rust buckets. This one is downtown, which helps boston's downtown. Most of these suburban malls make downtown areas ghost towns.

[KamaAina]

17. They own both Ala Moana Center AND Ward Centers

which together form a mile-long, nearly unbroken strip of retail between downtown Honolulu and Waikiki.

One of the "Big Five" local firms, Alexander & Baldwin, tried to buy Ward when it came on the market, but was outbid by GGP.

One would imagine this throws the plans to build a high-density "urban village" at Ward into chaos. Pity. We have one of the few tight rental markets remaining. Any new construction would be welcome.

[Raine]

18. I hardly ever go into a mall

I liked the stores that actually had storefronts and windows. :-(

[d_b]

19. internets ftw

[sarcasmo]

23. The biggest Mega Mall and newest here in West Michigan filed today, let me find the link.

General growth owns the Mall here so no link needed.

[madeline_con]

24. Most of the merchandise sold in malls is superfluous bullshit.

So this is no surprise. Honey Baked Ham, overpriced music and gift stores, and ridiculuosly priced boutiques are usually the first to be cut out of the budget.

[JimWis]

25. Your are right about the rents in malls being criminally high. They

are way out of line, plus they sometimes have to pay a percentage of their sales with the rent. I have had several business clients start up in malls, and never lasted very long. It was the rent that killed them.