WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL ®

(CHICAGO, IL) -- Three of the best-known shopping centers in the U.S. are up for sale today, the first time trophy retail products of this stature have been offered publicly instead of privately, according to persons in a position to know.

Harborplace & The Gallery

Owned by Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc., the properties are the 285,000-square-foot Harborplace & The Gallery in Baltimore, MD; the 200,000-square-foot South Street Seaport in New York City (pictured above); and the 200,000-square-foot Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston.

The properties are up for sale, either individually or as a group, because General Growth faces about $23 billion in debt maturing over the next five years, the company already has reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This year alone, it faces $1.2 billion in debt that has to be repaid.  Next year, the debt load coming due is $3.1 billion.

John Bucksbaum

Sources close to the developer say a good chunk of the debt load is due to General Growth's purchase of Columbia, MD-based Rouse Co. in 2004 for $11.3 billion.

General Growth Chairman John Bucksbaum has alerted the SEC the company may have to file for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Court protection from creditors if it cannot re-finance its loans by March 2009.



General Growth also told the SEC it has received a second extension from lenders on $900 million in loans for two Las Vegas properties.

However, selling or even refinancing the three properties in time to avert a Chapter 11 filing could prove burdensome, according to mortgage brokers familiar with comparable situations.

To find a buyer, General Growth has retained DTZ Rockwood LLC, a New York-based brokerage firm.

The three properties combined generated about $300 million in retail sales for the year ending Sept. 30, 2008, according to DTZ's marketing data.

Faneuil Hall Marketplace

General Growth's financial crisis comes as the commercial real estate industry as a whole faces heavy debt over the next five years, according to Oakland, CA-based Foresight Analytics. Major developers already have asked the Congress for a share of the $700 billion in the government's recently-passed Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Foresight Analytics estimates about $530 billion of commercial mortgages will be up for refinancing in the next three years. About $160 billion of debt is expected to mature in 2009 alone.

The company's stock on the New York Stock Exchange today traded in the $1.34 range, down 41 cents from Dec. 19 and down 95% from its high of $54 a year ago.