General Growth

General Growth Properties Inc, the second-largest U.S. mall operator, said it has emerged from bankruptcy, 11/2 years after becoming the biggest U.S. real estate company to seek Chapter 11 protection. The Chicago-based operator of 183 shopping malls in 43 states said Tuesday that it had emerged from under protection from creditors after obtaining $6.8 billion in new equity capital and restructuring about $15 billion of debt. General Growth properties include Baltimore's Harborplace and the Gallery as well as The Mall in Columbia.

The Baltimore waterfront's iconic Harborplace is being sold to a New York real estate investment firm that has a reputation for purchasing distinctive retail centers, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Tuesday. Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp., which is collecting unique commercial landmarks like Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, Union Station in Washington and Rivercenter in San Antonio, purchased the Inner Harbor mall from General Growth Properties, Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

Asset manager Blackstone Group has agreed to invest about $500 million in shares of General Growth Properties Inc. once the shopping mall operator emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. General Growth, which owns most of the regional malls in Central Maryland, disclosed Blackstone's role in a regulatory filing Wednesday detailing an amended version of its proposed reorganization plan. An investor group composed of Canadian property manager Brookfield Asset Management Inc., the Fairholme Fund and Pershing Square Capital Management has agreed to provide up to $8.5 billion in capital to finance General Growth's exit from bankruptcy.

General Growth Properties will spend $1.8 million improving a seven-building office complex in Columbia's town center, its leasing agent said Thursday. The work on Columbia Corporate Center, across from the Mall in Columbia, will include renovations to suites, lobbies, common corridors and exteriors, said real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield. jhopkins@baltsun.com twitter.com/RealEstateWonk Text BUSINESS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun Business text alerts

General Growth Properties Inc., the U.S. shopping mall owner with $900 million in loans due yesterday, remains in talks with its lenders, a spokesman said. "We continue to talk to all of our lenders, and as soon as we have something to announce, we will do so," Tim Goebel, a spokesman for the Chicago-based company, said yesterday in an interview. General Growth, which owns several local malls, including Harborplace and The Gallery, Towson Town Center and The Mall in Columbia, is also Columbia's master developer.

General Growth Properties Inc. has announced two additional public forums in April to discuss the development of a master plan for Columbia's Town Center. "These public forums will provide opportunities for the community to get to know members of our design team, to learn about the planning process and to respond to their ideas," Gregory F. Hamm, GGP's regional vice president and general manager of Columbia said in a statement. "This community involvement is key to the planning of Town Center as GGP continues its commitment to working with all those with a stake in Columbia's future."

A commercial real estate broker is taking over leasing duties for a large part of General Growth Properties' downtown Columbia office buildings. General Growth, which owns most of the Town Center offices and had been handling the leasing itself, said yesterday that NAI KLNB will focus its attention on seven buildings ringing the Mall in Columbia. The offices, which total about 1 million square feet, sit alongside Little Patuxent Parkway. General Growth says the vacancy rate of those buildings is about 15 percent, higher than its overall Columbia office portfolio.

General Growth Properties has requested and received a continuation for its proposal before the county Planning Board to commercially develop the land adjacent to the Merriweather Post Pavilion. The continuation appeal, which the board granted Monday night, settles the confusion surrounding the development company's plans for the 51.7-acre crescent-shaped property - Columbia's largest chunk of developable land - next to Merriweather. After General Growth submitted the proposal to the board in October, it shared with the community in May a draft master plan to turn Columbia's Town Center into a vibrant, bustling downtown core.

For nearly 40 years, the Rouse Co. was like a benevolent parent, and Columbia was its pride and joy. But as with many families, things changed. And after the November marriage of Rouse and mall developer General Growth Properties Inc., some in Columbia are worrying that they might have been demoted from apple of the eye to misunderstood stepchild. In 1963, James W. Rouse and his partners bought the land that would become Columbia, or "the next America" as he called it. "We must hold fast to the realization that our cities are for people," Rouse said in a 1959 speech to the Newark Conference on the Action Program for the American City in Newark, N.J. "And unless they work well for people they are not working well at all."

General Growth Properties -- which has been interviewing community members to get their thoughts about developing downtown Columbia -- is convening meetings of local leaders this month, possibly to show a rough draft plan for Town Center. County Council Chairman Guy Guzzone, a north Laurel-Savage Democrat, said he has been told by company officials that General Growth is also planning to have a meeting open to the community next month. "I think these are all good steps in the right direction," he said.

Swedish retailer H&M has signed a lease to open at the Harborplace & The Gallery shopping complex in downtown Baltimore this spring. The clothing store had been negotiating to occupy much of the Light Street Pavilion of Harborplace for the past few months. The two-level store will be located next door to Urban Outfitters and have its own entrance that faces the water of the Inner Harbor, according to a press release from General Growth, which owns Harborplace & The Gallery.

A K-9 security team will be dispatched to patrol five Baltimore-area malls to beef up security at the properties, mall owner General Growth Properties announced Tuesday as the holiday shopping season gets under way. The team of two German shepherds will monitor activity at Harborplace & The Gallery, Towson Town Center, White Marsh Mall, The Mall in Columbia and Mondawmin Mall. While General Growth officials said no single crime or incident prompted the use of the K-9 unit, the new security plan comes after several high-profile crimes at Mondawmin this summer, including a robbery in which a gunman escaped with $100,000 worth of watches and jewelry from Elite Gold & Diamond.

General Growth Properties is selling the Gateway Overlook Shopping Center in Columbia for $90 million. The 2,700-square-foot center, which opened in 2007, includes tenants such as Trader Joe's, Loehmann's, Costco, Best Buy and On the Border. The sale is part of a strategy by General Growth, which emerged from bankruptcy this week, to sell non-core assets to boost its balance sheet. The sale of the shopping center located at Routes 175 and 108 will help the company reduce about $55 million in debt and generate $35 million in proceeds.

General Growth Properties Inc, the second-largest U.S. mall operator, said it has emerged from bankruptcy, 11/2 years after becoming the biggest U.S. real estate company to seek Chapter 11 protection. The Chicago-based operator of 183 shopping malls in 43 states said Tuesday that it had emerged from under protection from creditors after obtaining $6.8 billion in new equity capital and restructuring about $15 billion of debt. General Growth properties include Baltimore's Harborplace and the Gallery as well as The Mall in Columbia.

Empty stores haunt the corridors of Owings Mills Mall — their gates locked and shelves and racks bare. Slowly they have trickled out: Forever 21, Nine West, Express, all gone. Hulking department stores that once anchored the mall have shut down, leaving thousands of square feet of nothing. And as Ken James, a shopper and a suit specialist at the mall's Macy's, put it, "When McDonald's moves out, you know it's bad. " This is the latest bout of an identity crisis that has plagued Owings Mills since it opened in 1985.

Asset manager Blackstone Group has agreed to invest about $500 million in shares of General Growth Properties Inc. once the shopping mall operator emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. General Growth, which owns most of the regional malls in Central Maryland, disclosed Blackstone's role in a regulatory filing Wednesday detailing an amended version of its proposed reorganization plan. An investor group composed of Canadian property manager Brookfield Asset Management Inc., the Fairholme Fund and Pershing Square Capital Management has agreed to provide up to $8.5 billion in capital to finance General Growth's exit from bankruptcy.

Rouse retirees lose health benefitsGeneral Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago real estate giant that bought the Columbia developer Rouse Co. in November, is dropping company-paid health and life insurance for Rouse retirees - a move that follows a national trend but breaks with Rouse's tradition of comfortable benefits. Retirees over 65 will be offered Medicare supplemental policies through AARP when coverage ends Dec. 31, but will have to pay up to $250 per month per person. Those under 65 can buy the coverage General Growth offers to its active employees.

The General Growth Properties plan to remake the heart of Columbia was spared from the company's bankruptcy petition Thursday, but the filing means the long-discussed project will be delayed, experts say. Any company mired in bankruptcy, they say, will struggle finding money for an ambitious 30-year plan to build millions of square feet in houses, stores and offices in tony Howard County. A Baltimore-based stock analyst was blunt about the prospects of building getting under way in Columbia any time soon.