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ST. LOUIS MILLS OPENS

The Mills Corp.’s 1.2 million-square-foot St. Louis Mills opened last month. The $250 million value megamall, located in Hazelwood, Mo., some 17 miles northeast of St. Louis, is 80 percent leased, the company says. This is the third center Mills has completed in the previous 12 months. The 1.4 million-square-foot Madrid (Spain) Xanadú opened in May, and the 1.2 million-square-foot Colorado Mills opened outside Denver in November 2002. Now Mills says it is looking at building a value megamall in Vallejo, Calif., about 30 miles north of San Francisco.

DEUTSCHE BANK EYEING GMAC

Deutsche Bank is said to be in negotiations to buy the commercial mortgage unit of General Motors Acceptance Corp., a lender that has generated about $552 million in retail real estate loans this year. The matchup makes sense on many levels, industry observers say. For one thing, Deutsche Bank has no loan-servicing operation, while GMAC is the largest loan servicer in the United States, with $160 billion in loans under its watch. Insiders cite the loan-servicing business as a main reason for Deutsche Bank’s interest in GMAC. Deutsche Bank has generated about $1.5 billion in retail real estate loans this year.

WORK BEGINS ON DENVER PROJECT

Colorado developer Alberta Development Partners has broken ground in a Denver suburb on a $250 million mixed-use project that will offer 1.5 million square feet of retail. The project, called Southlands, will also contain 1,100 condominiums and 250,000 square feet of offices. Southlands is being built in Aurora, about 25 miles southeast of downtown Denver. Kohl’s, Sam’s Club and a Wal-Mart Supercenter are among the retailers and restaurants signing on to the center’s first phase, which is scheduled to open next fall. Alberta Development says it expects to complete the entire project, with a total of 200 retailers, in the fall of 2006.

GGP BUYS THREE MALLS FOR $550 MILLION

General Growth Properties has paid a total of $550 million for three malls. It bought the 1.1 million-square-foot Maine Mall, South Portland, Maine, from Cigna, New York State Teachers’ Retirement System and S.R. Weiner & Associates; the 1.2 million-square-foot Glenbrook Square, Fort Wayne, Ind., from L&H Real Estate; and the 675,000-square-foot Sikes Center, Wichita Falls, Texas, from Coyote Management. General Growth has made nearly $2 billion in acquisitions this year alone. Maine Mall, which opened in 1971, is the state’s largest retail property and has sales per square foot of $465.

FOREST CITY, LEWIS START CALIFORNIA CENTER

Forest City Enterprises and Lewis Retail have broken ground on the $180 million, 1.3 million-square-foot Victoria Gardens, Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., in the southern part of the state’s Inland Empire area. The downtown, open-air mixed-use center, to be anchored by an AMC theater, J.C. Penney, Macy’s and Robinsons-May, is scheduled to open in October. A library and cultural center will also serve as anchors.