Westfield Pays $756 Mil for Nine Malls

LOS ANGELES-Westfield America Inc., the giant shopping center owner still hungering for more US properties, has agreed to buy nine regional malls across the nation from Cleveland-based Jacobs Group for $756 million in cash, stock and assumption of debt.

Four of the properties are in Ohio and the rest are in five other states. In all, the deal will add 9.7 million sf of retail space to Westfield’s current $5.7 billion portfolio of retail properties in the US.

The largest of the properties involved in the sale is Southpark Center, a 1.35-million-sf mall in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville. Jeff Linton, a Jacobs Group spokesman, tells GlobeSt.com. Other properties include the 1.3-million-sf Chesterfield Mall in Chesterfield, MO; the 1.27-million-sf Southcenter complex in Seattle; and the 1-million-sf Gateway in Lincoln, NE.