Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Alpha8472
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Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Alpha8472 »

The European owner of Westfield is aiming to get rid of their malls in the U.S. by 2023.

This will result in potentially steep losses for the company.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by rwsandiego »

Alpha8472 wrote: April 17th, 2022, 3:12 pm The European owner of Westfield is aiming to get rid of their malls in the U.S. by 2023.

This will result in potentially steep losses for the company.
No great loss. It wasn't as if the "Westfield" name resonated with customers. When they rebranded University Towne Centre in San Diego "Westfield UTC" no one ever used the Westfield name. I suspect the same was true in their other markets.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Alpha8472 »

Westfield San Francisco Centre and Westfield Metreon never caught on. People just say Metreon or San Francisco Centre.

Westfield actually is not that bad at managing their properties. They seem to keep them looking modern and full of security. However, they do have some vacancies and empty storefronts.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Brian Lutz »

Back when Westfield took over Southcenter Mall in the Seattle area there was a major push to rebrand it to Westfield Shoppingtown Southcenter, but that didn't really work and eventually they settled on Westfield Southcenter, but I doubt there are many people outside the Westfield corporate office that don't just still call it Southcenter Mall. That said, it's one of only a handful of malls in the Seattle area that have done reasonably well (the others being Bellevue Square and Alderwood) and will probably continue to do OK regardless of ownership.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by storewanderer »

Westfield were legends in their own mind in the US. Nobody cared about them at all.

People only care about the quality of the mall. The Westfield malls were not consistent enough in layout or quality for customers to ever make a connection and say oh, those Westfield malls are the best, I will seek out Westfield. Ironically, they are actually mostly A and B malls and I think consumers are actually seeking those malls out but the consumers are not making the connection that the malls are Westfield, just that these specific malls have an above average collection of stores.

I am surprised they want to sell the malls though. It would be one thing to trim back the marketing spend trying to market their Westfield name that nobody cares about in the US, but these are many high performing malls. It will be interesting to see who buys them.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by buckguy »

Westfield never really established their identity, partly because the malls were so varied in their target pops. Still, they're probably the one big mall landlord that hasn't gone bankrupt (Simon did it via their B-mall spinoff). They probably overpaid for most of their malls--buying when malls were clearly starting to die, but they stayed out of heavy dead mall markets like Atlanta, sold the obvious laggards a while ago and have some dominant properties like Garden State Plaza. They also kept the stronger swimmers from the former May Company portfolio like Montgomery Mall. This isn't the ideal time to sell, but if they wait too long, more of these properties will be candidates for expensive redevelopment.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by Super S »

In Vancouver, WA, they also tried the "Westfield Shoppingtown Vancouver Mall" name for a while, eventually shortening it to "Westfield Vancouver. The road nearby I think never changed the name from Vancouver Mall drive, and the freeway signs on I-205 had the Westfield name covered up in less than a month after Westfield sold the mall.

In Olympia there was a similar situation, and the Westfield name was eliminated quickly when they sold Capital Mall.

I will admit though that they at least made an effort to keep malls updated and occupied, although some aspects never made sense. One change that they made at Vancouver Mall during a remodel was placing escalators only at the ends of the mall just outside the anchor stores, eliminating the ones near the center mall. The center stores are the ones that ended up closing: Sears, Mervyn's, and Nordstrom.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by SamSpade »

Brian Lutz wrote: April 17th, 2022, 10:36 pm Back when Westfield took over Southcenter Mall in the Seattle area there was a major push to rebrand it to Westfield Shoppingtown Southcenter, but that didn't really work and eventually they settled on Westfield Southcenter, but I doubt there are many people outside the Westfield corporate office that don't just still call it Southcenter Mall. That said, it's one of only a handful of malls in the Seattle area that have done reasonably well (the others being Bellevue Square and Alderwood) and will probably continue to do OK regardless of ownership.
I should add the Seattle metro region was/is never really "over-malled" like may metros in the U.S. though now that I think about it there have been shifts over the years in some of the suburbs to alternative or mixed uses of spaces that were originally built only as indoor (or later enclosed) malls, usually smaller centers that couldn't draw traffic like the larger 'magnet' malls.

They'd dumped Vancouver (Clark County, Wash.) Mall a while ago, and it seems to be doing fine under current owners. I do think some of the renovations and changes at Southcenter helped keep it relevant in the longer-term, so I don't feel the same dislike of Westfield that some Americans do.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by veteran+ »

Alpha8472 wrote: April 17th, 2022, 3:12 pm The European owner of Westfield is aiming to get rid of their malls in the U.S. by 2023.

This will result in potentially steep losses for the company.
Perhaps Simon will dive in like they did with Taubman.
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Re: Westfield Says It Is Done With The U.S.

Post by pseudo3d »

Brian Lutz wrote: April 17th, 2022, 10:36 pm Back when Westfield took over Southcenter Mall in the Seattle area there was a major push to rebrand it to Westfield Shoppingtown Southcenter, but that didn't really work and eventually they settled on Westfield Southcenter, but I doubt there are many people outside the Westfield corporate office that don't just still call it Southcenter Mall. That said, it's one of only a handful of malls in the Seattle area that have done reasonably well (the others being Bellevue Square and Alderwood) and will probably continue to do OK regardless of ownership.
They dropped the Shoppingtown name several years back, like 2006-ish. All their malls had it.
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