Glenbrook Square Owner Facing the Credit Crunch

Glenbrook Mall's latest owner, General Growth Properties, is facing a severe credit crunch.  The Securities and Exchange Commission added General Growth Properties stock to the list of companies where short selling of the stock is banned. The Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune reported that the company is likely to put properties up for sale as part of a strategy to deal with the heavy debt load borne by the large national retail center manager.

In the wake of those reports, many local media outlets in cities that have General Growth Properties retail centers are speculating as to the possibility of sale of various individual properties.  The fall of General Growth stock means that GCP properties are worth substantially more than the market value of General Growth as an entity.

Regional shopping center management is General Growth's core competency, though. It is more likely, as the Maryland Daily Record's Robbie Whelan reported, that the company might sell off the specialty urban retail centers it gained through its acquisition of the Rouse company before it began chewing through any of its regional shopping malls such as Glenbrook Square.

Glenbrook Square has maintained a high level of performance since its opening in the mid-1960's. Relative to other regional malls opened in the same era, Glenbrook has had an enviable record of retail success.

Photo credit: 1977 photo from ACPL Community Album.   

ADDENDUM: If you didn't already see Kristina Frazier-Henry's post on the opening of Glenbrook Square you need to read it.  Ms. Frazier-Henry's notes on the Child of the Fort weblog that on her way to looking up other information, she spotted an ad that Glenbrook Square ran at its opening.  She reproduced the ad.

It is a classic of copy-writing. It is also noteworthy because the copy notes that the developer of Glenbrook Square actually expended its own funds in making upgrades to the roads serving the center.  Imagine that.  These days the developer would be expecting the municipality to be paying for the improvements and the City Redevelopment staff would be urging creation of a Tax Increment Financing District to do just that.

Comments

[john b. kalb]

When the original Southtown Mall was built, does anyone know if the city redevelopment people were in any way involved. And, if they were, does this tell us anything about why some projects, like Glenbrook, are still viable? In contrast to a mall that completely fell apart AFTER all the public monitary help stopped? I guess I will, like Kristina, spend some time at the library.

Ed. note: Well, what I recall as interesting about the original Southtown was that there was a land swap with the city.

[Kristina Frazier-Henry]

John,

I don't know nearly as much about the history of Southtown Mall as I do Glenbrook Mall...but here's what I can tell you...

Southtown Mall was a 7 million dollar project (comparable to Glenbrook's spend) but was developed by Melvin Simon (Indianapolis) - Glenbrook Developer was Landau, Heyman, & Clay (Chicago).

It broke ground in March 1967 so if you're going to do some research - look between 1966 (when the project was announced) and 1967, when it broke ground.

Al Zacher (according to one of the Fort Wayne books I have), "represented" the developer of Southtown Mall.