GlobeSt.com UPDATE: PREIT Completes $549.4-M Rouse Retail Acquisition

PHILADELPHIA-Locally based Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust closeson the two remaining malls in a six-mall portfolio it acquired this yearfrom Columbia, MD-based Rouse Co. PREIT paid an aggregate of approximately $80.4million for Plymouth Meeting Mall in Plymouth Meeting, PA, and Echelon Mallin Voorhees, NJ. The aggregate retail space is about 1.6 million sf.

The Plymouth Meeting property has a gross leasable area of 820,000 sf, andthe current occupancy rate is 91.1%. At the end of March, in-line tenantsales averaged $231 per sf.

Echelon Mall totals 1.14 million sf, and the occupancy rate is 73%. In-linetenant sales average $237 per sf.

To fund the purchase, PREIT refinanced Dartmouth Mall in Dartmouth, MA, andMoorestown Mall in Moorestown, NJ, for $70 million and $64.25 million,respectively. The financings were completed for a 10-year term withamortization on a 30-year basis, at an interest rate of 4.95%. It paid Rouse with net proceedsof $74.2 million from this transaction, plus $6.2 million from its line ofcredit.

Moorestown Mall is one of three centers PREIT acquired in the Rouse package.The others are Cherry Hill Mall in NJ, Exton Square Mall in Exton, PA, andthe Gallery at Market East in Center City. The four total about 3.6 million sf,and PREIT paid an aggregate price of $469 million, bringing the total priceof the six-mall portfolio to $549.4 million.

The final closing “secures our position as the leading shopping mall REIT inthe Philadelphia market,” said Ronald Rubin, PREIT’s chairman and CEO.

Thecompany’s retail portfolio increased by 47% since January 1. PREIT now owns28 retail properties totaling about 17.4 million sf.