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DESERT PASSAGE SLATED FOR RENOVATION

Desert Passage’s new owners plan to give the 475,000-square-foot mall a higher profile on the Las Vegas Strip with a $30 million makeover. In December RFR Holding and East Coast developer David Edelstein jointly bought Desert Passage from Trizec Properties for $235 million. (Trizec’s last remaining retail property is Hollywood & Highland, in California.) The Middle East-themed Desert Passage opened in 2000 at a cost of $285 million, but has suffered from a lack of visibility on the Strip, some say. Others also blame lackluster marketing by the Aladdin Hotel following its bankruptcy in 2001. Urban Retail Properties manages Desert Passage.

JACOBS BUILDING TAMPA, FLA., CENTER

The Richard E. Jacobs Group unveiled plans to build its second super-regional center in Florida. Cypress Creek Town Center, a 1.5 million-square-foot open-air center in Tampa, will be part of a major mixed-use development. Sierra Properties, a Tampa-based developer of master-planned communities, is building the surrounding project. Sierra will build about 600,000 square feet of big-box retail, two hotels, 300 multifamily units and 420,000 square feet of offices. The developers plan to open Cypress Creek in 2007 and the rest of the project in 2011, but they have not yet announced a ground-breaking date.

ROUSE, PARTNER BUY MIZNER PARK

The Rouse Co. and an undisclosed partner are buying Mizner Park, a mixed-use center in Boca Raton, Fla., from TIAA-CREF for $136.9 million. Rouse’s partner is a client of ING Clarion, a New York City-based subsidiary of Dutch financial institution ING Group. The partner will be sole owner of the center’s residential portion, but the two will each own 50 percent of the office and retail components. Mizner Park’s 240,000 square feet of retail space is housed in multiple buildings and includes an 80,000-square-foot Robb & Stucky home-improvement store and some lifestyle tenants. Mizner Park, which opened in 1989, also has 248 apartments, 24 town houses and 164,000 square feet of office space.

WIZARDS OF THE COAST CLOSING STORES

Game maker Wizards of the Coast, creator of such games as Dungeons & Dragons, says it will close all its stores within the next month. The Renton, Wash.-based company, which toy giant Hasbro acquired in 1999, has some 80 Wizards and Game Keeper units in the United States, according to its Web site. Many of the stores are in upscale malls. The store closures are meant to “enable a deeper focus on Wizards’ core business of game design,” the company says.

VORNADO BUYS STORIED N.J. MALL

Vornado Realty Trust plans to expand, retenant and redevelop the 1 million-square-foot Bergen Mall, Paramus, N.J., which it has bought from Simon Property Group for $145 million. The enclosed, two-level regional mall’s anchors are Macy’s, Marshall’s, Off 5th Saks Fifth Avenue Outlet and Value City. The center was built in 1957 by Allied Stores Corp., at a time when department stores were heavily involved in shopping center development.