Mills Buying Scottish Center

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND-The Mills Corp. continues to beef up its international presence with the proposed acquisition of the 715,000-sf St. Enoch Centre here. Mills and Canada-based partner Ivanhoe Cambridge are buying the center in a 50-50 joint venture from Deka Imobilien Investment for $524.3 million in a deal they expect to close next month.

The center will be Mills’ third outside of the US. Last year it opened Madrid Xanadu a retail-entertainment center outside of the Spanish capital, and the company opened Vaughan Mills, outside of Toronto, with Ivanhoe last month. Mills also plans to build Mercati Generali, an 830,000-sf retail-entertainment center in Rome and company officials said they are looking at other sites in Italy and Spain. In addition to these formally announced projects Mills has been in talks to build a one-million-sf regional mall southeast of Glasgow.

The deal comes as US shopping center owners, such as General Growth Properties, Simon Property Group and Taubman Centers, are buying and building centers abroad. Foreign property owners are currently doing the same in the US. On Sunday, Australia-based Centro Properties Group, with Santa Monica, CA-based Watt Commercial Properties, reached an agreement to acquire US retail REIT Kramont Realty Trust for $610 million. (For the story, click here).