Archive for December, 2007
by David Bodamer December 26th, 2007
MTV is looking to make some noise in the original musical arena with “The American Mall.”
The project, from “High School Musical” producers Bill Borden and Barry Rosenbush, will premiere next year on the cable network, followed immediately by a release on DVD.
Bulgarian-born actress Nina Dobrev and Rob Mayes lead the ensemble cast of the musical, a romantic comedy-drama set at a mall that centers on high school graduate Ally (Dobrev), a singer-songwriter battling to save her mother’s music store and to keep the boy she loves, Joey (Mayes), a musically gifted young janitor who fronts a garage band.
Full story.
Related Topics: News, Quirky, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 26th, 2007
ICSC published sales figures for the last week of pre-Christmas sales (PDF). That doesn’t include the last-minute surge that was widely reported. The question is whether the surge was enough to turn the season into a truly successful one.
The last week of the holiday rush proved to be a positive one,
as many consumers shopped late this year. Weekly chain store sales rose by 2.8 percent for the
week ending December 22, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers, Inc.
(ICSC) and UBS Securities LLC. On a year-over-year basis, sales rose by 2.8 percent as well.
The weekly year-over-year figures look like this:
| Week |
YOYGain |
| Dec. 1 |
3.1% |
| Dec. 8 |
2.3% |
| Dec. 15 |
2.1% |
| Dec. 22 |
2.8% |
For all ICSC’s releases, go here.
For its part, SpendingPulse the retail data service of MasterCard Advisors, said retail sales rose 3.6 percent for the holiday season. However, the SpendingPulse figure tends to be a bit high because it doesn’t adjust for same-store sales.
Related Topics: News, Retail, Trends |
by David Bodamer December 26th, 2007
A California judge ruled on Christmas Eve that shopping center common areas are the equivalent of traditional town squares and therefore even though its private property, first amendment rights to free speech and assembly apply.
On December 24, the California Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that its 1980 Pruneyard decision is still good law. That decision had said that because shopping center walkways are the social equivalent of the old traditional town square, therefore distributing leaflets, petitioning, and related free speech activity must be allowed, even though the shopping center is private property.
The new decision is Fashion Valley Mall v National Labor Relations Board, S144753. The particular kind of free speech activity concerned union activists passing out leaflets, suggesting a boycott of one particular store in that shopping center. The case had been in the courts since 1998.
The majority consisted of Chief Justice Ronald George and Justices Carlos Moreno, Joyce Kennard, and Kathryn Werdegar. The dissent was written by Justice Ming Chin and signed by Justices Marvin Baxter and Carol Corrigan. The dissent is fierce. It says, “Pruneyard was wrong when decided. In the nearly three decades that have since elapsed, jurisdictions throughout the nation have overwhelmingly rejected it (this is a reference the fact that most other State Supreme Courts have interpreted their state’s free speech provisions to not apply to any private property).” The dissent also says, “The time has come to recognize that we are virtually alone, and that Pruneyard was ill-conceived…Even if we stubbornly maintain our position of ‘magnificent isolation’ in the face of this tide of history, we should not carry Pruneyard to the extreme of forbidding private property owners from controlling expressive activity on their property – urging a boycott of its tenants – that is inimical to the purpose for which the property is being used…Assuming free speech rights exist in shopping centers, the fact remains that they are not Hyde Park in London, Central Park in New York, or the National Mall in Washington, D.C.”
The New York Times also reported on the ruling.
Related Topics: Management & Leasing, News, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 20th, 2007
This is just really odd.
A Willow Springs woman has been charged with endangering the life of a child after she left her 6-year-old son alone at the Chicago Ridge Mall to “teach him a lesson,” police said.
Ernestine Willer, 52, of the 100 block of Santa Fe Lane was arrested at 7:50 p.m. Thursday after security guards spent almost an hour searching the mall for her, officials said. After the boy was found wandering around the food court alone, he gave police information to track down his mother, authorities said.
According to the police report, when Willer came back to the mall to pick up the child, she was arrested and charged with a misdemeanor of endangering the life and health of a child.
And in another odd item, you can watch a clip of a man proposing while his girlfriend is sitting on the lap of a mall Santa.
Related Topics: News, Quirky, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 19th, 2007
The Wall Street Journal today has a look at the ongoing wrangling to turn the former Drake Hotel in New York City into a new mixed-use tower.
The highly leveraged Mr. Macklowe is developing an office-and-retail tower on the former location of the Swissotel’s Drake Hotel on Park Avenue in midtown Manhattan, which he bought last year for $418 million. If he can get the $2 billion project under way — especially with a big-name anchor tenant under lease — it could create some breathing room on his balance sheet while he deals with other debt-laden projects.
To pull that off, though, Mr. Macklowe needs to enlarge the development site by also buying a row of small retail buildings that face East 57th Street. However, so far he has been unable to secure all of those buildings, and people familiar with the situation say the glitch lies at least with one building: 42 E. 57th St., home to Turnbull & Asser, a high-end men’s clothier owned by Mr. al Fayed.
Mr. Macklowe has been thwarted because Turnbull & Asser has a long-term lease, and the owner doesn’t want to relocate. “We are here to stay,” said Paul Collins, chief financial officer for Turnbull & Asser, who declined to comment further.
Related Topics: Development, Mixed-Use, News, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 19th, 2007
Speculation about the fate of the site of the old convention center in Washington D.C. has been rampant for years. It finally looks like a deal is in place.
Hines and Archstone-Smith are the main developers of what will be an $850 million blockbuster project.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and a commercial development team have agreed on an $850 million deal to build retail shops, apartments and condominiums on public land where the city’s former convention center once stood.
The development will be built on two-thirds of the 10-acre parcel, which is the largest undeveloped property in the District’s urban core south of Massachusetts Avenue.
The mayor, in a news conference yesterday morning at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, said the project would become the District’s new retail center.
“This project will be — in almost anybody’s definition — the heart and soul of downtown,” Fenty said. “A live, work and play environment unlike anywhere else in Washington, D.C.”
The development team of Hines and Archstone-Smith plans to build two office buildings, two condominium buildings and two apartment buildings on the land, with construction slated to begin in January 2009. About 20 percent of the housing will be reserved for low- and middle-income tenants. The developers plan to complete the first buildings in 2011.
Related Topics: Development, Mixed-Use, News, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 18th, 2007
Tarrytown, NY-based DLC Management, a private retail real estate owner, has just grown its portfolio by 1.57 million square feet with a 16-shopping center portfolio deal. Edens & Avant sold the portfolio to DLC for an undisclosed amount in this owner-to-owner transaction, facilitated with no outside brokerage representation.
An East Coast private shopping center owner, Edens & Avant held a portfolio of more than 140 retail centers in 16 states prior to this announcement.
Including this transaction, DLC has completed 31 acquisitions in 2007, representing a 27% growth in its portfolio over 2006. The company now boasts a portfolio of 94 shopping centers totaling more than 16.5 million square feet in 25 states.
Story at CoStar.
Related Topics: Investment, News, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 18th, 2007
Given all the gloom and doom about the holiday shopping season, Best Buy’s third quarter numbers come as a pleasant surprise.
Best Buy Co., the nation’s biggest consumer electronics retailer, said Tuesday its third-quarter profit jumped 52 percent, boosted by holiday shopping and sales of higher-ticket items such as flat-panel TVs.
The results beat Wall Street expectations and the company boosted its outlook for the year.
Its shares rose more than 2 percent in premarket trading.
Profit for the quarter ended Dec. 1 rose to $228 million, or 53 cents per share, from $150 million, or 31 cents per share in the prior-year period.
Revenue rose 17 percent to $9.93 billion, from $8.47 billion last year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial predicted a profit of 41 cents per share on revenue of $9.44 billion. The earnings estimates typically exclude one-time items.
Same-store sales rose 6.7 percent, helped by higher average selling price and a calendar shift that added an extra week of holiday shopping to the quarter. Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least fourteen months, is a key indicator of retail performance since it measures growth at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.
Related Topics: News, Retail |
by David Bodamer December 18th, 2007
On Monday, Related Cos., the developer behind the Time Warner Center in New York, said it had received a capital infusion of nearly $1.4 billion from companies including the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government and Goldman Sachs.
At a time when the credit markets are still on the couch, the deal gives the private developer a fattened purse to fund future development.
Goldman and MSD Capital bought 7.5% equity stakes in Related, while an affiliate of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development the Olayan Group and an unnamed company made debt investments of an unspecified amount. The companies will invest with Related in future projects, the developer said.
At Forbes.
Related Topics: Finance, International, Investment, Mixed-Use, News, Retail Real Estate |
by David Bodamer December 18th, 2007
Centro Properties Group stock fell another 40 percent in trading today in Australia, closing at A80.5 cents. Investors have sold off about 85 percent of the company’s market value over two days, leaving with a market capitalization today of just A$722 million.
Macquarie Bank operates two entities that own assets in the U.S., Macquarie DDR and Macquarie Countrywide. Each of the two firms issued statements affirming the trusts’ debt positions and portfolio performance to assuage investors that what happened at Centro might happen elsewhere.Overall, analysis coming out of the Australian market is that Centro’s problems are unlikely to spread to other property trusts. Centro’s problems, though, do illustrate the refinance risk in the market. As debts under more generous terms come up for refinancing, other companies will have some problems, but probably not on the scale of Centro.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported on prospects of other Australian firms buying Centro’s assets. Meanwhile, The Australian said Centro might be forced to sell its U.S. portfolio for A$2 billion less than what it paid because of the change in the market.
Also, Australian banks have A$4 billion in exposure to Centro through various debt packages.
(For the original post on Centro, go here.)
Related Topics: Finance, International, Investment, News, REITs, Retail Real Estate |
