Glimcher Realty Trust Focuses on Malls, Property Sales

COLUMBUS, OH-Glimcher Realty Trust will focus on mall properties in 2001 more than community strip centers, as well as properties in the Midwest. The REIT also hopes to sell as much as $100 million of its portfolio this year, says president Michael P. Glimcher.

“The goal has been to pull in the reins a little bit and focus on the Midwest,” Glimcher says of the REIT’s community center strategy. However, the REIT’s outlook is more national when it comes to malls. “We anticipate the mall portfolio increasing,” Glimcher adds.

About 60% of the REIT’s 30.4-million-sf portfolio is invested in malls now, Glimcher says, which the REIT would like to increase to 70%. That includes the one-year-old “value megamall” Jersey Gardens, which has been successful for retailer Sak’s to open stores in Glimcher properties in Kansas City and Columbus after first-year sales in Elizabeth, NJ.