New firm takes over management of Westdale Mall

A Chicago company is taking over the management and leasing of Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids.

Jones Lang LaSalle will operate the 854,000-square-foot mall after acquiring management and leasing responsibilities for 18 properties that General Growth Properties does not own in its third-party management division.

Approximately 200 employees who comprise the management teams at Westdale and the other 17 properties plus 30 corporate employees who provide services to the properties will become Jones Lang LaSalle employees.

Chicago-based General Growth Properties, which owns Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, took over the management of Westdale Mall in December 2006. It has leased the former Steve & Barry's anchor store to Linn County as temporary office space since the flood of June 2008 and picked up some smaller tenants displaced from Lindale Mall.

The portfolio of 18 regional shopping malls and community centers in Iowa and 10 other states adds more than 11 million square feet to Jones Lang LaSalle's retail portfolio of 84 million square feet in the Americas and 265 million square feet worldwide. The publicly-traded company has the largest third-party retail portfolio in the country.

Jones Lang LaSalle's more than 300 regional malls, strip centers, power centers, lifestyle centers, development projects, mixed-use centers, transportation terminals and over 6,000 retail ATMs and bank branches are located across 49 states.

In addition to announcing the deal with Jones Lang LaSalle, General Growth Properties on Monday said it is getting a $500 million infusion from a Texas teachers pension fund as it attempts to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, manager of one of the largest and most successful U.S. pension funds, has entered into a definitive agreement to invest $500 million  in exchange for shares of the reorganized General Growth Properties stock at $10.25 per share.

The investment is subject to the approval of the bankruptcy court.