(Ian Ritter is national online editor for GlobeSt.com/RETAIL.)

PORT WASHINGTON, NY-Grocery-anchored center owner Equity One, of North Miami Beach, FL, is offering about $380 million, or $17 per share, for Cedar Shopping Centers. Cedar's board responded with a statement saying it would "promptly convene a meeting to consider this proposal."

Shares of locally based Cedar, which owns 58 centers in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, closed yesterday at $14.92. "We believe that our proposed transaction would provide maximum liquidity and value for Cedar's common shareholders," says Chaim Katzman, Equity One's chairman and CEO, in a statement. "We are very familiar with Cedar's assets and operations and believe they are highly complementary to our own."

The deal would give Equity One centers in Northeastern states where it does not currently have a presence. Right now the only assets it owns in the region are in Massachusetts.