Are things looking up for Mills Corp.?

The chief executive of The Mills Corp. assured shareholders Friday that there are no undisclosed financial problems looming as the mall developer prepares to file its long-delayed financial earnings reports early next year.

Mark Ordan said the process of restating Mills reports has been “stunningly complex,” but he provided few details about the reports and the reasons the real estate investment trust pushed back its expected filing dates several times this year. He said there were no issues beyond the previously disclosed accounting errors, which the company is trying to fix.

“You should not read any of my remarks to say that there is some smoking gun out there that we are hiding,” Ordan said at Mills’ annual meeting.

According to a Bloomberg news report, retail workers are increasingly seeking counseling to cope with so-called “buyer rage.”

“People are frustrated and tolerance is diminished,” ComPsych Chief Executive Officer Richard Chaifetz says. “Shopping is less of a leisure experience and more of a ‘grab’ experience. People are pushed and shoved and grabbed by the throat.”

ComPsych, which counseled World Trade Center tenants after the Sept. 11 attacks, offers its services, including training in handling difficult customers, to employees at 7,000 organizations, including Fortune 500 companies. Its retail clients include Toys “R” Us Inc., Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. and Tiffany & Co.

In a sign of how much the holiday shopping season is evolving, some mall managers were shocked by the strong burst of activity starting the morning after Christmas.

Vista Ridge Mall’s marketing manager, Debi Martinez, wrote a note Tuesday to put in her file for next year’s holidays.

“I regret we didn’t open the mall earlier than 9 a.m. the day after Christmas,” she wrote. “Parking lots were full when I got here at 8:30 a.m. Shoppers weren’t just at the department stores that opened early; there were tons of people in the mall.”

While some early, unofficial results are calling the holiday shopping season disappointing, crowded stores and parking lots indicate the season continues unabated. Enticed by new markdowns, pre-dawn openings and loaded gift cards, holiday shoppers were out again Tuesday.

So while the pre-Christmas portion of the season looks like it will come in at the low end of expectations there’s still a lot that needs to be sorted through. There is the post-holiday sales rush that’s in full swing, which also includes returns, exchanges and people cashing in gift cards. The other factor is the level of promotional activity before Christmas and today and how much that will cut into retailer profits.

In his 2007 outlook, Forbes’ Peter Slatin points to inner city retail as one of the best investment bets.

Investors will pull back from core office markets. Instead, the two strongest targets for investment will be retail/affordable housing in inner cities and office buildings in outer suburbs, both of which have been passed over by investors for years–and both of which now represent strong value plays.

It’s a race to the finish line in the holiday shopping season. There’s lots of reports of stores and malls operating on extended hours–some are opting to stay open 24 hours a day during the home stretch. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out as we begin to sift through the data next week.

In the mean time, here’s a few of the big headlines from around the industry for the past couple of days.

• Westfield sells stake in British mall for $1 billion
• Storms disrupt mall operations in Denver
• American Girl is taking half of Lord & Taylor’s space at Water Tower Place
• Atlantic Yards gained final approval from a state oversight board, but now likely faces lawsuits.

It’s busy here as we work to get the January issue of Retail Traffic out the door. So it’s been a quiet day on the blog front.

But there was an entertaining piece in the New York Times about Paramus, N.J., the unofficial mall capital.

New York Newsday reports on mall owners adding more free services as a way of keeping shoppers at their properties for longer stretches.

Playtown is just one of several family- and child-friendly amenities introduced to Westfield South Shore and Westfield Sunrise in Massapequa during the past few years to enhance the shopping experience, attract customers and make sure they return. Both locations offer free assistance carrying out packages, parking for expectant mothers, complimentary Kiddie Kruzzers — strollers in the shape of fire engines and cars — and a lounge for families in need of a break.

Mercury Real Estate Advisors LLC, a unit of real estate investment management company Mercury Partners LLC, urged the sale of Feldman Mall Properties Inc. in a shareholder proposal Monday.

Mercury owns about 1.3 million of the real estate investment trust’s shares, nearly 10 percent of the company’s 13.1 million outstanding shares. In a proxy proposal dated Monday, the stockholder said a sale of the company would be in the “best interests of stockholders and should be pursued immediately.”

Story here.

“Wal-Mart” and “Communist Party” are not institutions you would necessarily lump together. It illustrates just how different doing business in China really is for retailers and developers.

more

Forest City Ratner has been in an ongoing battle to get its proposed Atlantic Yards project approved. Opposition groups like Develop Don’t Destroy and No Land Grab continue to oppose the project, even as it inches closer to reality having gained many of the key approvals it needs.

But the New York Times today raises an interesting twist to the story, which is that the fate of the project could end up in hands of Sheldon Silver, the state Assembly speaker.

more