New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
WESTFIELD TRUMBULL MAY BE UP FOR SALE
Paris-based owner shifting focus to Europe
As Connecticut real estate goes, it would be a listing to grab more than a few eyeballs — an expanded layout and dining area, tropical aquarium, and bonus rooms galore, on dozens of acres of land.
Is the Westfield Trumbull mall for sale? Owner Unibail Rodamco-Westfield is not saying, but the Paris-based company has confirmed plans to sell off a significant number of its U.S. properties this year and next.
Activist investors have been pressing for a U.S. divestment, arguing URW needs to “delever” its debt given the uncertain outlook for any recovery in retail.
In a review earlier this month of its financial results, URW indicated the wheels are moving for a disposal of U.S. properties this year and next, without offering further specifics. A URW spokesperson stated Thursday the company is not offering comment beyond general statements it has made publicly.
“We’ll prepare all options to reduce significantly the U.S. exposure, such as we have fully delevered the company,” said URW CEO Jean-Marie Tritant, speaking this month on a conference call. “The company will be fully focused on Europe.”
Closures, foreclosures dog malls
URW was formed from the 2018 merger of Unibail-Rodamco and Australia-based Westfield, which used its 1977 acquisition of the Trumbull mall as its springboard to the U.S. market. Today, URW has more than 35 properties — 20 in California — spanning malls and retail corridors in airport terminals.
In additional to the Westfield Trumbull, URW’s Northeast properties include Westfield World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus, N.J.
URW found a buyer last summer for the Meriden mall, with Long Island-based investor Namdar Realty Group paying $12.5 million for the mall. That amounted to a fire sale off its appraised value of $74 million that the city had assigned the property most recently for tax purposes. Namdar bills itself as a buyer of “B” and “C” class malls, with its properties including the Enfield Square Mall off Interstate 91 near the Massachusetts border.
Westfield Trumbull is among the most valuable “class A” malls in Connecticut, with the town of Trumbull appraising it at more than $262 million as of 2015. The mall supported 3,250 jobs as of the summer of 2019, according to town records, with 85 percent of the storefronts occupied as of Thursday.
Even as retailers have departed since — the mall has a big new vacancy with the closure of Lord & Taylor in two days and another prominent opening with Wahlburgers boarded up — the mall had already been working to expand its appeal by adding a SeaQuest aquarium and proposing an apartment development on the property, similar to a plan pitched by the owner of the Connecticut Post Mall.
Throughout Connecticut and the region, malls remain under an existential crisis as their owners weigh the best uses for big-box spaces freed up by departing department stores, and as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts the restaurant scene that some have counted on to draw patrons. In Waterford, the Crystal Mall is getting transferred to lenders by mall giant Simon Property Group under foreclosure, on the heels of Macy’s electing to close a store there as well as at Waterbury’s Brass Mill Center owned by Brookfield Properties.
In Norwalk, Brookfield Properties cashed out its ownership stake in the SoNo Collection only weeks after opening it in the fall of 2019, while continuing to manage the mall on behalf of unnamed investors. Last year, the furnishings retailer Safavieh bought the Stamford Town Center mall for $20 million.
And Macerich recently won an extension of a $191 million mortgage secured by the Danbury Fair mall, even as it moves ahead with plans for two standalone restaurants in Shake Shack and Longhorn Steakhouse. Macerich reported having 93.5 percent of Danbury Fair’s available space leased at year end, with rent collections across all its properties in December at about 92 percent of amounts due under lease contracts.
Two weeks ago, the CEO of Macerich said that December shopping across its malls was at 85 percent of the level of activity prior to the pandemic, taking that as a sign of hope for 2021 and beyond. He did not rule out Macerich selling properties itself.
“There haven’t been a lot of trades — that being said, there’s a fair amount of capital out there and there’s a fair amount of interest,” said Macerich CEO Tom O’Hern, speaking on a conference call.