Simon and partners Group BEG opened the 1.1 million-sf Arkadia, a Carrefour-anchored center in Warsaw, Poland. The mall owner also unveiled Clay Terrace, a 570,000-sf mixed-use center 15 miles north of Indianapolis with Lauth Property Group; and a 175,000-sf new wing at The Forums Shops at Caesars in Las Vegas.
Under construction are the $225 million Town Center at Coconut Point, an mixed-use project in Estero, FL; the $158 million St. Johns Town Center, a 1.5 million-sf open-air center in Jacksonville, FL; the $132 million Firewheel Town Center, a 785,000-sf open-air center in Garland, TX; the $98 million Wolf Ranch, a 670,000-sf community center in Georgetown, TX; and the $39 million Rockaway (NJ) Plaza, a 250,000-sf community center.
The company is also working on seven other developments, all of them open air, said Rick Sokolov, the company's president and CEO, though he did stress that there are some future enclosed mall opportunities for Simon. Company officials also said that they plan on starting two new outlet malls per year through Simon's Chelsea outlet division, starting in 2006. Simon closed on Chelsea Property Group earlier this month. The company paid $5.1 billion (including debt) for the 60 outlet center portfolio.
Though Simon just closed that huge deal and has a large development pipeline ahead, David Simon, the company's chairman and CEO, said not to expect a major increase in acquisitions in the near future. "We still think that paying the types of cap-rates it takes to clear the market is very difficult to justify," he said.
The number of retailer bankruptcies next year will probably not exceed the number of those who filed this year, predicted Simon. "The real big problem out there is: What happens with Wet Seal?" he said, referring to the 600-store, mall-based apparel chain that warned of the possibility of filing earlier this year.
During its Q3, Simon's FFO increased to $277.7 million from $246.7 million the same period a year ago. Same-store sales per sf in Simon's portfolio also jumped, to $421 from $398. Simon, based here, owns 300 center in the United States, 49 in Europe and four in Japan.
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