BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI-Despite a net income loss of 18 cents per diluted share, compared to 6 cents per diluted share a year ago, Taubman Centers' Q3 earnings call focused on overall strong occupancy and sales increases, as well as new anchors announced for a mega mall in Michigan.

Robert Taubman, Taubman's chairman, president and CEO noted that the Sept. 15 opening of the 1.1-million-sf Northlake Mall in Charlotte, NC, as well as increased lease rates at other national centers, helped positively impact the quarter's results. Northlake Mall opened 95% leased and committed, with the expectation it will be more than 90% occupied by the holidays.

On the development side, groundbreaking has launched on the 55-acre, approximately 600,000-sf Partridge Creek Fashion Park in Clinton Township, MI. Nordstrom, Parisian and MJR Theatres are the three already signed anchors, which will lease a combined 300,000 sf. The mall is scheduled to open during the last quarter 2007, with Nordstrom scheduled to open during the second quarter of 2008.

Taubman has also signed a long-term agreement with MGM Mirage to oversee retail leasing activities and to provide development and design consulting for Project CityCenter in Las Vegas, a multi-billion mixed-use urban development scheduled to open in late 2009.

The occupancy rate across Taubman's portfolio stood at 88.9% as of Sept. 30, up 1% from the same date a year ago. Leased space was also boosted, landing at 91.2% by the end of September 2005, compared to 90.2% from the same period the year before. Occupancy, Taubman noted, is the company's driver of core net operating income growth.