Arthur Coppola, Macerich's president and CEO, revealed the plans yesterday at a Lehman Brothers conference in New York City. "We are currently working on an entitlement that we believe we will have at the end of this year," he said. Tysons, one of the country's largest malls, is 97% occupied and anchored by Bloomingdale's, Hecht's, L.L. Bean, Lord & Taylor and Nordstrom.

The Lehman Brothers panel Coppola spoke at was on different aspects of developing and redeveloping properties. He also touched on his company's plans for Phoenix, where Santa Monica, CA-based Macerich plans to build five major retail projects by 2016. The developer, which owns 64 malls across the country, is currently constructing SanTan Village, a 1.2 million-sf power center, in Gilbert, AZ.

Overall, Macerich executives will spend $200 million to $400 million annually on new developments and redevelopments. Speaking about the $11 billion proposed merger between Federated Department Stores and May Department Stores, Coppola said that the company has 15 centers where the retailers have overlapping stores and he expects they will close some of those spaces, leading to future redevelopment opportunities.