With price tags rising on other regional malls, owners of the Tampa mall set out to determine the interest of possible buyers.
By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published May 15, 2003
TAMPA - The owners of WestShore Plaza have hired Morgan Stanley to market the oldest regional mall in the Tampa Bay area to prospective buyers.
Decision-makers at Grosvenor International, a British investment company with a $1-billion portfolio of U.S. real estate, said they are "seriously considering" offers because prosperous regional malls have been fetching some of their highest prices in years.
"We have not really decided to sell the property," said David Olson, a senior vice president with Grosvenor in San Francisco. "But we are more serious about it this year because of the favorable market conditions. Plus we think we have fixed everything, and WestShore's sales have fully recovered."
Morgan Stanley is putting out feelers among insurance companies, pension funds and mall development companies to see whether there are enough interested buyers to open the competition to bids. While one real estate newsletter has reported Grosvenor wants about $150-million, Olson said there is no asking price.
The mall is managed by General Growth Properties Inc., the nation's second biggest mall operator. The Chicago real estate investment trust owns or manages 159 regional malls in 39 states.
Grosvenor acquired 36-year-old WestShore a little more than a decade ago. The company poured more than $100-million into renovations in the past five years, upgrading the property from a mainstream mall to one with more upscale tenants, including Saks Fifth Avenue, which arrived in 1998.
The plan went awry, however, when Taubman Centers Inc. elbowed its way into the upscale market by landing Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Lord & Taylor for its International Plaza. The competitor, a mile away from WestShore, opened in 2001.
WestShore, which covers 50 acres, lost several tenants, including Dillard's, and cut its expansion plans from 65 more stores to about 20. WestShore also added a 24-screen AMC Theater and four sit-down restaurants in a new wing designed to bolster the mall as a night-time attraction. Sears Roebuck & Co. took Dillard's place last fall.
Sales in the 1.1-million square-foot-mall slumped to about $360 a square foot in 2002 but have recovered to a pace of more than $400 a square foot in 2003. That's well above the national average. The occupancy rate is 93 percent, and Grosvenor said it has commitments for several more leases pending.
