Shopping Centers Today -> January 2005
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Britain delays REIT legislation

Confounding predictions, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown did not include legislation that would allow the creation of REITs there in a pre-budget report in early December. The country needs more time to understand the inner workings of the structure, executives say. “They will discuss further their ideas with us and are not rushing through something that is poorly thought through,” Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Foundation, told The Financial Times.

Simon subsidiary opens outlet mall in Mexico

Roseland, N.J.-based Chelsea Property Group, a subsidiary of Simon Property Group, opened the first phase of Premium Outlets Punta Norte (Mexico) last month. Tenants include Adidas, Catimini, Christian Dior, Dockers and Levi’s. The property will encompass 390,000 square feet of space when it is completed at an undetermined date.

PREIT buys its first Florida mall

Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust paid Colonial Properties Trust and Prudential Real Estate Investors $123.5 million for Orlando Fashion Square, a 1.1 million-square-foot regional mall in Orlando, Fla. The deal bears a cap rate of 7.6 percent. The mall, which is anchored by Dillard’s, JCPenney and Macy’s, is 92 percent occupied and recently underwent a two-year, $6.5 million renovation. Philadelphia-based PREIT, the 14th-largest owner of North American retail space, holds several properties in the Northeast, but Orlando Fashion Square is its first mall in Florida.

Rome picks Mills to develop site

Rome’s authorities have picked The Mills Corp. to build a retail, entertainment and cultural center at the city’s Mercati Generali site. The 830,000-square-foot project will retain the ancient district’s name, which means “general markets,” and offer Roman shopping and entertainment in five distinct districts. It will include a large public square with about 100 apparel and specialty shops, markets and art galleries. Another section will have a bookstore and a high-tech public research library. The recreational facilities will include health clubs, sporting goods stores and game arcades. There will be a restaurant and market district too, as well as a performance space with indoor and open-air theaters, a cinema, a radio broadcasting center and some nightclubs. Mills is collaborating with several European companies on the project.

Illinois forces stores to cough up e-tail taxes

Illinois succeeded in obtaining more than $2.4 million in Internet sales taxes from Office Depot, Target, Wal-Mart and their Web-based affiliates, which the retailers had failed to collect. The companies claimed they did not need to collect the taxes because their Internet affiliates do not have their headquarters in the state. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan countered that the Internet operators established a presence in the state when their parent company stores allowed patrons to get in-store refunds for purchases made online.
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