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this article was linked off RetroMetro, and I found it pretty interesting. I’d love to see some developer grab hold of the City Center area and announce a big revamp plan like this sometime soon.
Here are some choice quotes from the article. Tell me if you think this is doable for the City Center.
Phoenix is putting in place the final building block in its plan to construct a new downtown.Next week, it is scheduled to approve a blockbuster agreement with a Scottsdale-based developer that plans to build a $900 million project that will bring more hotel rooms, office space and residents to the city’s core plus give the area its first grocery store in 25 years.
To make the deal work, the city is prepared to purchase the project’s underground parking garage and pay for repairs to an existing parking garage at a cost of $96.5 million. In addition, it will wave the property taxes on the development’s key components for eight years; that financial incentive is worth at least $26 million, according to official estimates.
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Details of the deal, which would bring an AJ’s Fine Foods store to Central Avenue and Washington Streets. It also comes as the city continues to move forward on a variety of big-ticket revitalization projects, including the expansions of the new Arizona State University campus and the Phoenix Convention Center and the construction of a $1.4 billion light-rail system.
The amount of retail space it would bring to downtown Phoenix is one of the most significant components of the project. Altogether, there are roughly 250,000 square feet set aside for dining, shopping and other entertainment in CityScape.
In addition to the downtown grocery store, the project’s developers say they have a commitment from P.F. Chang’s China Bistro to locate a restaurant on the site. The company is also in conversations with a bookstore, a health-club and fitness center and several other national retailers. He said he wants the project to have a mix of local stores and restaurants plus larger chains that don’t have a presence in the Phoenix market.
Plans call for the CityScape development to contain four high-rises. One would be a high-end commercial office tower with roughly 550,000 square feet of space. A second, similarly sized high-rise could provide additional office space, residences or a combination of the two. The project’s final two towers will be residential, and all four will soar well to more than 400 feet. While they won’t be as high as downtown’s tallest building, the Chase Tower at 486 feet, they will still remake the downtown skyline, because they will sit on land that currently houses surface parking.
That document suggests that as many as 10,000 units be built over the next decade. There are currently 2,500 under construction. CityScape will push the city a little closer to its overall goal. City officials also want to construct 60 to 80 for-rent apartments.
Local officials hope some good will come of it
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Barnet D . Wolf and Tracy Turner
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The fate of Downtown’s foundering Columbus City Center mall could be in the hands of a Canadian real-estate company.
Brookfield Asset Management Inc. of Toronto said yesterday that it signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mills Corp., co-owner of City Center and the Mall at Tuttle Crossing, for $7.5 billion in cash and assumed debt.
Guy Worley, chief executive of Capitol South Urban Redevelopment Corp., which owns the mall property, said Brookfield’s interest is a positive step. The transaction is expected to be completed the second half of this year.
“This news is better than news we heard recently, where Mills was considering bankruptcy,” Worley said. “We’ll have to wait and see what the true effect will be on City Center mall.”
Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman has said many developers would like to renovate the mall, but nothing can move forward as long as Mills pays its City Center rent, which it continues to do.
Meanwhile, the news for City Center, which has a 50 percent or less occupancy rate, continues to get worse. The mall will lose at least eight more tenants by the end of March, including the Body Shop, La Claire, Max & Erma’s, Papyrus and Trade Secrets.
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The article also noted that Capitol South isn’t planning to start dialogue with Brookfield until after the sale closes, and that several more retailers are going to be gone by that time.
Am I correct that Capitol South owns the *other* 50% of City Center? I seem to remember that from somewhere but Google struck out for me.
Capitol South owns the parking garage and the land underneath City Center. I believe Mills paid about $250,000 a month to rent the “land”.
Knew this was coming, but Max & Erma’s is closed now, per this morning’s Dispatch.
i would expect not long after this deal is closed city center will be closed. i did not check the background of this firm, but turning around properties usually is a niche, i am not sure if this firm works in that niche or not. i would definitely say if the hedge fund would have bought mills city center would have been sold immediately, just because of the nature of pe funds and more increasingly hedge funds is to purchase a firm and immediately divest all underperforming assets. i will not say for sure but i would expect city center to change hands once more before redevelopment.
Business First of Columbus – 1:59 PM EST Wednesday
Mills Corp., which agreed this month to be sold for $1.35 billion to a Canadian company, said it received an extension to pay back its roughly $1 billion loan that was threatening to force the shopping-mall developer into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
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Business First of Columbus
10:45 AM EST Monday
Farallon Capital Management, Mills’ largest shareholder, and Simon Property Group Inc. hope to woo shareholders with a cash tender offer of $24 per share for the company’s outstanding common stock. The deal is valued at $1.56 billion. Farallon and Simon said they could close their tender offer at least six months earlier than Brookfield Asset Management Inc.’s bid.
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Sheesh! Years of deterioration and atrophy, and then suddenly a bidding war?
I guess this is why I don’t work on Wall Street. If I could have seen this coming, I’d have bought at least a couple hundred shares of Mills last year. This keeps up, and I could have been paying off law school before too long. Gonna have to keep waiting a little while longer on that one, I guess. :)
Business First of Columbus
11:43 AM EST Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Mills Corp. said Tuesday the $24 a share buyout offer from Simon Property Group and Farallon Capital Management is more favorable to its stockholders than Brookfield Asset Management Inc.’s $21 a share offer.
Simon and Farallon proposed Feb. 5 to buy Mills in a transaction worth about $1.56 billion. Mills’ January agreement with Brookfield is valued at $1.35 billion.
Unless Toronto-based Brookfield (TSX:BAM) can make a better offer within three days, Mills’ board said it will terminate the agreement with that company and enter into one with Simon and Farallon.
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Business First of Columbus – February 16, 2007
The co-owner of the struggling Columbus City Center mall has agreed to a sweetened $1.64 billion buyout offer from Simon Property Group Inc. and partner Farallon Capital Management.
Mills Corp. said Friday that it has entered a definitive purchase agreement that will see Simon and Farallon pay $25.25 a share — above the partnership’s $24-a-share offer last week. The joint venture expects to begin tendering shares this month.
With the assumption of Mills’ debt and preferred stock, the deal is valued at $7.9 billion.
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I’m going to go out on a limb here, and maybe my idea may be too drastic, but I think they should tear City Center down and start over. Put that section of Downtown back on the street grid, incorporate high rise office/affordable apartment/condo with street level, maybe two story retail. Maybe keep the former Marshall Field’s / Macy’s and half of the parking structure. I honestly see no hope in that massive complex.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Recent articles about the ongoing struggles at the Columbus City Center mall are further indications that the mall should be a prime Downtown candidate for adaptive reuse. Other recent articles have reported on the studies and recommendations for the arts in Columbus, and an April 13 editorial suggested that the arts are “an important part of the city?s fabric.” Why not turn the mall into a true culturaland performing-arts center?
A place that big could contain a variety of centrally located arts activities, including galleries, rehearsal and performing spaces and arts-organization offices, as well as some shopping and dining. This also might make sense as a way to thematically reconnect to the Lazarus building and the diverse activities that are envisioned for that building. There are quite a variety of arts venues Downtown, mentioned in the reports as one of the arts community?s strengths. However, the public is not supporting the arts at self-sustaining levels.
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Ooh, a new buzzword! I like it! :idea:
May 3rd, 2007 by Jeff
Two downtown Salt Lake City malls are in the process of a huge make over. So huge, in fact, that they’re being completely removed and rebuilt from the ground up. Formerly two boxes sitting across the street from one another, three anchor stores combined, they were facing a fate similar to that of City Center. Dated, underutilized, and competing for traffic as a new out-door retailing environment has opened only four blocks west.
Once rebuilt, the newly named “City Creek Center†will host three anchor stores, Macy’s, Dillards and Nordstrom, plus a grocery store, retail space totaling 400,000 square feet, and 400 residential units and include increased outdoor green-space. Parking will be underground.
This is precisely the type of project that should replace Columbus’ City Center.
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When I first saw that diagram, my first thought was “wow, that’s great – a clear mixed-use vision!” Then I thought, how does that actually happen??? I’m a complete novice here.
In Columbus, a lot of individual condo and commericial projects come to mind with little more than hope that they’ll weave a great community. Do we have a R/UDAT type group around? (I know we have a lot of acronyms, honestly can’t keep them straight, nor do I know exactly what they do)
I thought maybe a 22,000 square foot combination of club/restaurant/art gallery could do well there…
oh…wait…
I think it could do well… but the focus is too much on the “VIP nightlife” and not so much on the other elements. The restaurant and art galleries take a back seat to the nightclub, and that’s just part of the problem.
But anyway… different conversation for a different thread. :lol:
Actually, the fact that City Center is so close to the Ohio Theater (not to mention the other major theaters in the area) would make it an attractive residential location for people who are regular theater-goers; however, the problem is because so much of it is enclosed in what would otherwise be an alley, much of the space is not conducive to windows, and no one wants to live in a cave. You could put it in where the Macy’s is, and in the greenspace at High & Rich, but not in the core of where the mall is now.
Unfortunately, part of the problem is that the core of the mall is (a) failing as retail space; (b) largely useless as residential space; (c) too packed in close to the office towers for industrial use; and (d) in an area that’s already too saturated with commercial office space to be viable as more than that. Other uses (just brainstorming generically) are …
- entertainment
- arts
- government
- public recreation
- medical/health/wellness (I actually think one of those new quick-check-up health clinics that are starting to sprout up in some OTC pharmacies around the country might do very well as a standalone operation in CC … considering that a lot of people who don’t want to take a day off work to see a doctor might take an hour out of their day to walk a block to see a nurse)
Among others. But playing SimCityCenter is tough; it’s a game you can’t set on easy, unfortunately.
Business First of Columbus – May 4, 2007
by Brian R. Ball
Business First
Simon Property Group Inc. is sending signals it may soon sell the Columbus City Center mall downtown.
The Indianapolis-based real estate investment trust has begun to sort through the portfolio of malls and shopping centers it acquired in April from Mills Corp., including the moribund City Center and the thriving Mall at Tuttle Crossing near Dublin.
Simon CEO David Simon expressed little interest in trying to figure out how to revive the struggling mall near Capitol Square during an April 27 conference call with securities analysts. Questioned after providing a first-quarter earnings overview for the company and an update on the Mills deal, Simon told analysts an unspecified mall could be sold as part of the company’s effort to prune its retail center portfolio.
“There is one mall that might be sold here relatively soon, and it’s not a material asset,” Simon said, according to a transcript of the call. “We’ll sell assets that we don’t think fit, or that are going to take too much time for us to turn around.”
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Well, there might be another mall that fits that profile; just because ours does doesn’t mean ours is the only one that does. Simon is a pretty big group, after all. They’ve got assets everywhere.
That said, if I were their CEO and had to be dealing with national-level problems and knew I couldn’t take the time necessary to get too involved with any one local project, City Center would be on my short list of assets to get rid of.