empty storefront
General Growth Properties Inc.
,
the Chicago-based real estate investment company that owns the
Bayshore Mall
, is in serious financial trouble. The value of shares in GGP, the second largest mall owner in the country, plunged Tuesday and Wednesday following a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Monday in which they laid out some bad news. The company has $1.13 billion in debt coming due in the next few weeks including $900 million in secured mortgage debt on
malls in Las Vegas
due Nov. 28, and another $58 million of corporate debt due Dec. 1. An additional $3.07 billion in debt comes due next year.
The SEC filing reads in part, “In the event that we are unable to extend or refinance our debt or obtain additional capital on a timely basis and on acceptable terms, we will be required to take further steps to acquire the funds necessary to satisfy our short term cash needs, including seeking legal protection from our creditors.
“Our potential inability to address our 2008 or 2009 debt maturities in a satisfactory fashion raises substantial doubts as to our ability to continue as a going concern.”
Translation: Could be bankruptcy time. What would that mean for Eureka? Hard to say, but people are already speculating. Feel free to add your own scenario.
This article appears in Without the Mill.
First thing to go are the underperforming -cough-cough- hack- excuse me, the underperforming -cough-hack- …
“Our potential inability to address our 2008 or 2009 debt maturities in a satisfactory fashion raises substantial doubts as to our ability to continue as a going concern.”
um… this spells it out. If this is how companies are being run, be very afraid.
An empty Bay Shore mall will be a perfect location for our new homeless camp. Sweet!!
All-weather skateboard park
The Bayshore Mall has been a hideous, poorly contructed eyesore for years; I’m sick of stumbling over their broken foor tiles. If and when there’s a bankruptcy I pray the whole ugly mess will be razed abd recycled and a new mall built elsewhere, leaving the wetlands to expand right up to Broadway.
Another failed experiment of the infinite growth economy mythology. A mythology better suited to a dimension of the universe where physics and reality as we know it does not rule– in other words, a place that does not exist.
The chickens begin to roost and nature always bats last.
Is it becoming clear to everyone now that the retail economy is in a deep slump, and that it will likely remain there for several years to come?
Thanks to the home-equity “ATM” people were accustomed to spending more than their income. As we unwind all that indebtedness, people will have to spend less than their income. Net result: a downward shift in consumer spending over the next few years.
Question: Will the project proponents for Ridgewood Village/Marina Center/Mill District continue to push for a massive increase in retail capacity during this time of historic shrinkage in retail demand? Will the County of Humboldt/City of Eureka/City of Fortuna let that happen, due to the temptation to steal each others’ sales and use tax base?
If so, how will the rest of us deal with the massive blight in existing retail centers that will be induced by this huge increase in retail capacity during a time of historical retail sales retrenchment?
Sign of the times.
the only problem with Godknot’s idea is that the new mall would be built either on former wetlands (now a toxic site) of the Balloon Tract, or in the former timberlands outside Cutten (Forster-Gil). We can’t just keep on expanding the blight of commercial real estate as the last mall falls apart. Meanwhile, how many shops in Old Town are vacant?
did anybody say “we can” in the comments, just checking….
We can buy quality products at locally-owned stores that are keeping money here.We can go to local restaurants,not chains.We can support our growth w/o having it be the only goal.We can maintain our quality of life w/o it ruining other peoples.And, for full disclosure,I am a small business owner.
How many employees do you have ‘critical’ and do you provide benefits and a 401k ?
If the answer is yes to the above, more power to you and your statement.
Could anybody tell me what the City or County could do to stop WalMart from sub-leasing the soon-to-be former Mervyns space?
T minus four months and counting…
pass an ordinance that will be sued and cost the city/county money it doesn’t have.
Full speed ahead with the WalMart takeover of the Bayshore Mall. We need some reasonably priced products here!
not allowing the walmarts entry into the market is classist. Many of the low income workers that provide you with your quality of life need discount stores to afford the luxuries you take for granted.
Big boxes pay property and sales taxes like local businesses, provide salaries and benefits to locals, and many times provide monies to local charities as part of their community outreach/marketing programs. Walmart is the top corporate charity donor. $279.2 million, about 10% of profits; $250 million of it in cash. How much does Piersons give to charity? or does it go in to his Freshwater mansion compound.
Yes! Let Eureka get a super duper Wal-Mart!! I live in Fortuna which is in jeopardy of getting a Wal-Mart which would just RUIN this town!! Eureka is already ruined, so let’s put our Humboldt County Wal-Mart there. I don’t mind driving north up to tweakerville to buy my fruit of the looms. Gives us southerners something to do on those rainy weekends…
Well no wonder the mall is going bankrupt. They jacked up every stores rent 30% and then they expect the stores to stick around in their mall? No wonder the stores are leaving. GGP has done this exact same thing at least 15 times before just to empty malls and sell the property off, basically screwing the local communities over. They did this 2 years ago in Redding too. Google it yourself and you will see.