December 18, 2006
General Growth Expands Park Meadows
General Growth Properties has unveiled plans for a 154,000-sf expansion of the
Chicago-based mall owner’s Park Meadows shopping center that will create an open-
air shopping and dining area. The project will blend the existing indoor retail venue
with an outdoor park and a common area street where the REIT will add new stores
and four new full-service restaurants to the current roster of 160 specialty retailers.
The new open-air portion of the property will redevelop a former Lord & Taylor
building into an expansion that is scheduled to be completed in the spring of 2008,
according to Pam Schenck, senior general manager of Park Meadows. When the May
Department Store Co. closed the Lord & Taylor stores in Colorado, Schenck says,
General Growth decided to transform the area into a space that would reflect the
changing tastes of shoppers. The open-air plaza will be designed to highlight
Colorado's outdoors, featuring landscape, sculpture, gathering places and water
features, including a two-level fountain that nearly spans the entire length of the
area. Besides General Growth Properties, the design team for the expansion includes
Omni Plan, MESA Design Group and Redmond Schwartz Design. General Growth is
negotiating with new retailers, larger stores, restaurants and boutique concepts at
Park Meadows, with new tenant announcements “in the process of being finalized,”
the company says. The redevelopment at Park Meadows is a joint venture of General
Growth with the New York State Teachers' Retirement System and institutional
investors advised by JPMorgan Asset Management. (Globest.com)
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Madden Takes LEED in Southeast Market
A landmark tower with a grand lobby and panoramic views of the Front Range will be
built in the southeast Denver market. Palazzo Verdi, named for its “green” building
design, will be the first high-end office building to be delivered to the southeast
market since Hines completed 4600 S. Syracuse in 1999. Desi