Developers Diversified Realty has sold a portfolio of 63 assets in a $603 million deal. The buyer is an unnamed institutional investor.

The original release can be found here.

Time becomes the latest media outlet to report on the mall curfew trend.

Many mall officials would agree. As more kids flock to shopping centers, walkways get blocked, older customers jostled and strollers overturned amid the horseplay. Even teens blame their peers. “People just hang out there and do dumb stuff, and we have to pay for it,” says Jordan Keinert, 17, of Mayfair’s new policy. Interim measures such as issuing trespass warnings and beefing up police presence are often not enough to rein in throngs of trash-talking teens. “They’d still be all over the place no matter how many you threw out,” says Bob Harrington, head of corporate security for Pyramid Management Group, which oversees 20 malls in New York and Massachusetts. And since too many cops chasing too many kids does not a pleasant shopping setting make, Pyramid now forces unchaperoned minors to leave its six biggest malls by 4 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

It’s not a decision any mall owner makes lightly. Teens may shell out a lot less per visit compared with older customers, but nobody wants to alienate tomorrow’s big spenders. David Renninger, a client-relationship executive at Jones Lang LaSalle, the largest third-party manager of shopping centers in the U.S., stresses that teens remain sought-after customers even in places with curfews. “We just want them to be supervised by a parent,” he says. But while escort policies may restore a mall’s family-friendly image–Renninger says some tenants at Genesee Valley Center in Flint, Mich., have reported double-digit sales growth since a 5 p.m. curfew began June 8–they can have a domino effect. Indeed, after Pyramid restricted teen access at one property, Harrington fielded calls from security directors at nearby malls who were only half joking when they said, “Thanks a lot for doing that. They’re all over here now.”

Retail Traffic reported on the issue in March.

Previously, blog posts on the subject can be found here, here and here.

Reuters reports on GE Real Estate’s interest in Mexican and Brazilian real estate.

“We see Brazil as maybe the next Mexico,” Joseph Parsons, president of North American equity at GE Real Estate said at the Reuters Real Estate Summit in New York. “The country is stabilizing; the government is proactive and business-oriented; it has enormous natural resources; it has a growing middle class; it has a lot of positive dynamics.”

Parsons said GE is starting to recruit its Brazilian real estate team, but declined to provide details on the company’s investment goals in that country.

Brazil’s economy has been on a strong growth path of late, with a government-linked think tank forecasting 4.3 percent gross domestic product growth this year and foreign investment on the rise.

In Mexico, where GE Real Estate has operated for 10 years, the company plans to invest about $400 million in industrial space over the next three months, Parsons said.

An AP report details Oprah Winfrey’s store plans.

The store will be located kitty-cornered from Harpo Studios, where Winfrey’s talk show is taped, a spokeswoman for Harpo Productions Inc. said Wednesday.

Construction already is under way on the one-story, 4,500-square-foot store, the spokeswoman said.

No potential opening date or details on what the store is expected to sell were released.

But Winfrey’s Web site does have a boutique where viewers can buy merchandise such as a beach tote with “O” logo trim for $26, a $10 coffee mug with “The Oprah Winfrey Show” written on the side, or a $24 basket made in South Africa.

The FBI is now investigating an incident from February where noxious fumes made shoppers sick at the NorthTown Mall in Spokane, Wash.

The case was forwarded to the FBI’s Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force by Spokane police, police spokeswoman Officer Jennifer DeRuwe said. Officials wouldn’t say specifically why they believe terrorism might have been involved.

Shoppers were evacuated Feb. 11 after some suffered symptoms consistent with being exposed to pepper spray or Mace, DeRuwe said. Reactions included coughing, watery eyes and noses, and scratchy throats.

No one suffered long term health damage, DeRuwe said.

Norman C. Brown, the FBI task force supervisor, said the incident “could be anything from a prank to an intentional act against a targeted store.”

A mall near Orlando saw some unexpected excitement when a 200-pound bear was spotted hanging out in a tree near the shopping center’s entrance.

No one was hurt, and the bear was soon cornered just outside a J.C. Penney store, where it lost consciousness and was carted away.

But just before noon today, the western parking lot at Seminole Towne Center Mall was like a scene from Marlin Perkins’ Wild Kingdom.
Law enforcement officers, mall security personnel and firefighters from Seminole County and Sanford had roped off a wide swath of parking lot to keep onlookers away from the bear.

It was about 15 feet up in a pine tree on the far edge of the parking lot, a few feet from an Interstate 4 off-ramp and about 200 yards from the mall entrance.

Vornado Realty Trust has purchased 15 centers. Reuters lists the purchase price as $209 million, but that doesn’t include the assumption of debt, which amounts to $142 million. That puts the total purchase price at $351 million.

The buyer is undisclosed.

The properties are located primarily in northern New Jersey and on New York’s Long Island.

The Star Tribune offers a glimpse at what it calls a mall for the small, a shopping center with tenants strictly geared for babies and kids.

That negative shopping experience inspired the Gonsiors, now 42, to create Uber Baby — a children’s clothing, toy and maternity store in south Minneapolis designed for parents who want their children to look cute, but edgy. Everything about the store, from the kid-friendly play area to the purple-and-orange paint, was designed with Tony in mind.

The store has done well enough in its first three years that they are making Uber Baby the center of a $2.1 million mini shopping mall across from Bachman’s flagship flower store on Lyndale Avenue S.

They’ll lease space to as many as 13 kids-oriented retailers — including a kids’ craft store, hair salon and photo studio — set in an outdoor marketplace with a pond and play area. They also are opening a second store in the Galleria mall in Edina, and are preparing to franchise the concept.

The Gonsiors hope the yet-to-be-named kids center will appeal to parents who want to shop for their children in one location without dragging them through expansive shopping malls or driving to and from strip centers. “For this market, this concept is unique,” said Jim McComb, a Minneapolis retail consultant. “The Mall of America may have all that stuff, but you’d probably have to spend an hour finding it and kids don’t have that kind of attention span.”

The rumored Barneys acquisition has come to fruition. Dubai-based Isithmar will pay Jones Apparel Group $825 million for the chain.

Women’s Wear Daily has an in-depth look at the implications of the deal, including how it may affect Barneys’ expansion plans.

On Sunday, Howard Socol, Barneys’ chairman and chief executive officer, told WWD he signed a new contract with Istithmar [which means investment in Arabic] to stay on at Barneys. Socol visited Palm Islands a year ago to explore the possibility of a Barneys store there. “That’s how Istithmar developed an interest in Barneys,” said one source. When Jones Apparel Group in its entirety was up for sale last year, Istithmar expressed an interest in acquiring Barneys, but Jones hesitated to sell an individual asset.

Socol has also visited London, triggering reports that Barneys would open a store there, too. But that’s a tough proposition, considering Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Harrods are entrenched in the British capital and the cost of real estate there is exorbitant.

Macao is also said to be on Barneys’ radar. The Asian island nation is undergoing a casino-fueled boom that has many luxury brands viewing it as the next Las Vegas, or even bigger, in terms of gambling.

The Washington Post has a story on how city officials are developing a city-wide plan to keep and attract new retail.

H Street is on the list, along with Georgia Avenue, Shaw, M Street SE, Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue, East Capitol Street and Bladensburg Road. The other neighborhoods have not yet been identified.

Each faces its own challenges. Some require redevelopment from the ground up, others resemble suburbia. But H Street is perhaps the closest to a turnaround.

The community hopes the city’s plan will create a better environment to attract retail. Among their requests are tax breaks for restoring old buildings, an expedited permitting process and cleaner streets.

“They talked about H Street in the theoretical and now we’re here,” said Joe Englert, who owns several popular bars in the neighborhood. “Now they’ve got to get in a different mind-set.”

In May, we linked to a similar story about how city officials in Tempe were jointly marketing street-floor retail throughout the city.