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Shopping Centers Today -> July 2002
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FROM LOAN-ER TO OWNER
Institutional investors made their first foray into shopping centers just over 50 years ago, in the form of mortgages.
In 1950 The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States placed a $10 million loan to cover the construction costs of Shoppers World, Framingham, Mass., outside Boston. But soon after the center opened in 1951, developer Suburban Centers Trust defaulted on the loan; Equitable assumed ownership of the property, which it held with various partners until the late 1980s.
Shoppers World represented the first part of a huge regional mall portfolio that Equitable would assemble, mostly on behalf of pension fund clients. The company’s retail holdings peaked in the mid-1980s at close to 100 million square feet of space nationwide.
The original Shoppers World was like an icon of the age of Eisenhower. Its architecture embodied the 1950s’ romance with the future, and it came at a time when vast tracts were there for the taking.
Ultimately, Shoppers World found itself encroached upon by competing centers. By the early ’90s, it had ceased to be competitive as a regional mall and was transformed into a power center anchored by Barnes & Noble, Linens ’n Things, T.J. Maxx and Toys “R” Us. It is now owned by DRA Advisors, a New York City-based institutional real estate company.
— J.M.
 | Current Issue November 2008 |