Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by veteran+ »

ClownLoach wrote: May 9th, 2022, 2:26 pm
Bluelightspecial wrote: May 8th, 2022, 9:36 pm I disagree. Westfield spent well over a billion dollars on Century City. They've spent almost as much on Topanga and The Village which are still under construction. They might want to sell their US properties, but they aren't going to give them away.
They also have spent a fortune on University Towne Center in La Jolla by UCSD and are not done yet. This includes Westfield's first apartment tower which is over 30 stories, ultra luxury priced, and seems to be almost entirely leased already. They still have to replace the former Nordstrom wing which is walled off currently after they moved to a new site on the property (its another outdoor mall like Century City) and Seritage is just now opening new stores that replace the former Sears. This is another billion dollar plus property as it is now - its still a smashing success from a retail perspective - and yet they could easily put five or six more of those towers on it and make a few billion more selling them as condos. The growth in North San Diego seems to be eclipsing anything else in California and probably the only place outside of the Inland Empire where the population is growing.

And I completely disagree on Westfield parking. They charge a nominal fee and have extensive signage everywhere for both drivers and pedestrians in both of the locations with complicated underground parking (Century, UTC). Very easy to find where you parked. I think they added quite a bit after the contractors finished the build.

Well, perhaps we are talking about a different shopping center or different part of the same center. :roll:
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Romr123 »

I think you make a lot of sense. To my eyes, there are 90/90, 80/80 and 60/60 malls. Generalizing here, the 90/90 malls are fully tenanted (90%) with fully appropriate (90% the type tenants you'd expect in that calibre mall). They probably never had Sears/JCP (so were the upmarket mall in their city). Probably only one per city (Somerset in Detroit, for instance); maybe two in the biggest cities. Successfully re-tenanted and upscaled (don't have multiple Macys' stores, for instance).

80/80 malls are 80% tenanted/80% appropriate...probably the class A malls with Sears/multiple Macy's locations which weren't quiiiiite able to move in a Nordstrom/Von Maur or re-develop the big empty box into something creative; and have a few more vacancies and a few more inappropriate (local/dollar/low-end/pushcart) stores. These can be "outlet-y" places as well (Great Lakes Crossing, or Cabazon Outlets e.g).

60/60 malls are on life support...mid-market, undistinguished malls which sprang up like cookies in the 70s/80s.

If Westfield could carve out the 90/90s (Century City/UTC) from the rest, they might have a reason to stay, but at some point it becomes fruitless and they just want to cut/run.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by lake52 »

At one point Westfield very deliberately listed their “flagships” on their website. They’ve kept all of them. Over the years they have sold off most of their non-flagships with a handful left. As previously mentioned, if they find a way to get rid of the dead weight, a chunk of the following malls would be really attractive,

Valley Fair
San Francisco Center
Galleria at Roseville
UTC
Century City
Topanga
Fashion Square
Garden State Plaza
Old Orchard
Santa Anita
WTC

Maybe Montgomery and Southcenter as well
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by buckguy »

lake52 wrote: May 10th, 2022, 6:23 pm At one point Westfield very deliberately listed their “flagships” on their website. They’ve kept all of them. Over the years they have sold off most of their non-flagships with a handful left. As previously mentioned, if they find a way to get rid of the dead weight, a chunk of the following malls would be really attractive,

Valley Fair
San Francisco Center
Galleria at Roseville
UTC
Century City
Topanga
Fashion Square
Garden State Plaza
Old Orchard
Santa Anita
WTC

Maybe Montgomery and Southcenter as well
Montgomery isn't as dominant or landmark as most of those on the list. Tysons Corner probably holds that distinction in the DC area, although Montgomery is the strongest of the Maryland DC areas malls. Montgomery has been a given large, recent investment from Westfield.

Their unfortunate branding aside and awkward circulation (regardless of opinions on Century City, the traffic patterns at Annapolis, Montgomery, and Wheaton leave much to be desired), Westfield seems to have willing to be persistent with B-grade malls and invest hugely in the As. They benefited from the various department store mergers (Macy-Federated and in a circuitous way May-ADS) which made some of these flagships available and they didn't make volume purchases like Simon and General Growth. They also sold white elephants like Northwest Plaza in St Louis when they could. They will make a good package (or packages) for someone who probably won't be as willing to invest.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by ClownLoach »

I was talking with family in Quebec and I forgot about the naming situation. The prominence of corporate branding of properties, as well as selling naming rights (!) is something that we just don't see in the US but it is business as usual elsewhere. Westfield was an international company and they probably just thought they would bring the practice to the US but of course nobody here recognized it.

Outside the US you do see the corporate name quite a bit. For example Carrefour is a French company that runs some very nice malls and the Laval location outside of Montreal is Carrefour Laval. I would take parts of this mall and put them up against South Coast Plaza and other top tier properties for ambiance and design (even though I don't recognize 97% of the stores as there are few American holdovers). There the Carrefour name is held in such high regard that it elevates the attractiveness of this mall despite the fact that it is outside of the core of Montreal. It seems that the unbranded properties were the worst ones. Also these foreign malls are very comfortable with including supermarkets, home improvement stores, theaters etc. and clearly have been for decades - while multi use only became popular in the late 1990s as the traditional US shopping mall began to decline with the mass consolidation of department stores.

The other interesting international practice is selling naming rights. For example movie theaters sell their name just like an arena would here. I was surprised to see Scotiabank movie theaters - they appear to be locations for Cineplex with a branding agreement. Some malls were named after other corporate entities such as Eaton, Desjardins Bank, etc. but I have no idea what they would really even be named without their corporate sponsorship because it is the core of their identity.

The only corporate branding that I can think of aside from Westfield in the US was when the Mills Company tried to sell the name of a new mall and it became "Discover Mills.". Discover Card did not renew the naming rights and I am not sure if that mall is even still in business. (on a separate note - considering that Mills were some of the newest malls in the country - I was shocked by how many have completely closed and are abandoned)
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by mjhale »

ClownLoach wrote: May 23rd, 2022, 8:48 am Westfield was an international company and they probably just thought they would bring the practice to the US but of course nobody here recognized it.
You make an excellent point about the lack of corporate branding in the US beyond sports stadiums. For me the thing that didn't make any sense was that Westfield came in and rebranded malls with long established names. Westfield Shoppingtown Wheaton sounds silly when you've called it Wheaton Plaza for as long as you can remember. Same with Montgomery Mall or Annapolis Mall. It is like Westfield came in and put their name on everything so people would know they own all this stuff. It is just out of character for the US market. What works elsewhere doesn't always work here and what works here doesn't always work elsewhere. Plenty of retailers have been on either side of that feeling.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by rwsandiego »

ClownLoach wrote: May 23rd, 2022, 8:48 am...Also these foreign malls are very comfortable with including supermarkets, home improvement stores, theaters etc. and clearly have been for decades - while multi use only became popular in the late 1990s as the traditional US shopping mall began to decline with the mass consolidation of department stores. ...
Supermarkets and variety stores were, in fact, present at malls developed in the 1960's and early 1970's. Oakbrook Center (tony mall west of Chicago), Park Forest Plaza (not as tony, but it had a Marshall Fields), and Randhurst Center each had a Jewel supermarket, Yorktown (not as tony) had a Grand Union, Golf Mill had a National and a Walgreens, and Woodfield had a Kresge and an Osco. Malls on the west coast also included supermarkets.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Brian Lutz »

As a somewhat famous\infamous example, Dixie Square Mall in Harvey Illinois (most notable as the site of a car chase through the then abandoned mall in the film The Blues Brothers) had a Jewel store and a Walgreens as tenants during its time as an operating mall from 1966-1978. Throughout much of its history Crossroads in Bellevue has has a grocery store as a tenant ( a QFC store has occupied the northern portion of the main mall building since at least the 1990s) and it was fairly recent that a 365 store operated in Bellevue Square for about a year before Whole Foods abandoned the concept and closed the store. Currently a Seafood City (Filipino ethnic grocery store) operates on the lower floor of what used the be the Mervyn's at Southcenter (the upper floor is a Round 1 arcade/bowling center.)
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by jamcool »

Maryvale Shopping City in Phoenix during the 60s-70s had two supermarkets and two drugstores- Fry’s and Walgreens on its South end (both shared the same building but were divided by a central walkway. El Rancho/Low Cost and Revco on the west end.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Brian Lutz »

ClownLoach wrote: May 23rd, 2022, 8:48 am The other interesting international practice is selling naming rights. For example movie theaters sell their name just like an arena would here. I was surprised to see Scotiabank movie theaters - they appear to be locations for Cineplex with a branding agreement. Some malls were named after other corporate entities such as Eaton, Desjardins Bank, etc. but I have no idea what they would really even be named without their corporate sponsorship because it is the core of their identity.
In the US, the Megaplex theaters in Utah do this to some extent. A number of the individual theaters within a complex have sponsorships (particularly premium ones such as IMAX) although those tend to be limited to businesses within the Salt Lake Valley, and I haven't been to one in a while but I suspect most of the sponsorships are from businesses within the Larry Miller group of companies (which owns and operates the theaters).
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