It hasn’t been a great week for some of the big players in the shopping center industry. General Growth continues to struggle financially, and Crief and Modus’s Trinity Walk shopping center hit a major roadblock.

As of Monday, four of General Growth’s malls are under court supervision. From an article discussing the most recent seizure:

The latest property to fall from the Chicago-based developer’s grip is the 1.1-million-sf Oakwood Shopping Center in the New Orleans suburb of Gretna.

A Louisiana court Friday, March 20, ordered the mall seized after the developer failed to pay off a $95 million loan due March 16.

The beleaguered company is attempting to restructure its executive ranks to cut costs. Hopefully the move will help ongoing negotiations with lenders. From an article discussing the change:

“As a company, we must regularly evaluate our operations and business lines to ensure we are using the best strategies,” General Growth spokesman David Keating said. “This also requires a great many difficult and challenging decisions, some of which affect our workforce.”

Modus and Crief, meanwhile, are attempting to go forward with the development of Trinity Walk despite major difficulties:

“KPMG have been appointed administrators on the Trinity Walk site after Anglo Irish Bank pulled its funding for the scheme. The collapse of the comes despite last ditch attempts by the public sector to keep it going, with a £7m emergency funding package agreed in recent weeks.
…
KPMG confirmed it was managing the administration of the scheme. Press reports say the collapse comes despite the fact the developers had secured Debenhams and Sainsburys as anchor tenants and the premises was 75% pre-let.”

“We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.”

Helen Keller
(1880 – 1968)

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It seems like it’s all Samsung all the time these days, but it can’t be helped: Samsung keeps releasing fascinating viral ads that top the charts, week after week. The company has been hard at work to associate its name with creativity and innovation, and it’s doing a great job. Rather than focus on a single consistent viral campaign for a line of products, Samsung has released wildly different ads for phones, computer hardware, and now LEDs:

Shopping centre staff will be trained to deal with terror attacks
Telegraph, UK
Shopping centre and store managers will be among 60,000 workers trained to help deal with terrorist threats, the Government has announced …

Shopping center’s ‘user fee’ irks customers
Florida Today, US
Read your receipts carefully, unsuspecting shoppers: Hammock Landing retailers charge customers an extra 1.06 percent “public user fee.” These fees finance road, water and sewer infrastructure expenses for the sprawling 78-acre shopping center at Interstate 95 and Palm Bay Road. The first stores opened there last week, and a ribbon-cutting ceremony takes place April 1 …

Retailers seek big cuts from shopping centre landlords
The Australian, AU
Australian retailers, following the lead of their hard-hit US and British counterparts, are demanding Australia’s biggest shopping centre landlords give rent holidays and reduce fees under the threat of closing their stores …

Permission-Based E-mail Affects Purchase Decisions
Brandweek, US
Much as consumers dislike being spammed, an Epsilon study released this week says those who’ve signed up to receive “permission-based e-mail” from retailers are happy to get it …

Costco, Whole Foods Offer Alternative to Union Bill
Bloomberg, US
Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Whole Foods Market Inc. offered an alternative to the union-backed “card-check” legislation that U.S. business groups are spending millions of dollars to defeat.

Consumers’ anxiety isn’t getting worse, research firms say
Chicago Tribune, US
As the bitter retail winter winds down, merchants are desperately searching for any sign that shoppers are ready to come out of hibernation. Just in time for spring, two retail research firms have obliged, issuing reports that offer the smallest bit of hope that consumer spending could bloom again …

Big retailers banned on Easter Sunday
Inside Retailing, AU
Major retailers, including supermarket chains Coles and Woolworths along with David Jones and Harvey Norman, have been refused permission to trade in NSW on Easter Sunday …

Unisex retailers taking ground from department stores
National Post, CA
Department store square footage has been shrinking slowly at shopping malls in Canada over a 10-year-period while large unisex stores such as Old Navy and American Eagle have taken up an increasing share of the retail space, according to a new report …