The new loan, through Bank of America, was for a fixed interestrate of 6.76%, and replaces the former mortgage that had interestof 8.20%, according to Lisa Indest, vice president of finance andaccounting for Glimcher. "It's very good news, the interest rate isfavorable," she says. "We have continued to take positive stepsaddressing capital structure, and we're very excited about ourmomentum."

The company recently sold a 60% stake in two mall properties,Lloyd Center in Portland, OR and WestShore Plaza in Tampa, to theBlackstone Group for $320 million, netting about $60 million tolower Glimcher's credit facility. Indest tells GlobeSt.com her firmis working on refinancing one more mortgage coming due this year."The Mall at Johnson City, in Tennessee, is due in June," shesays.

Lending for the Polaris property will be structured to be soldinto commercial mortgage backed securities, a sign of encouragingsuccess this year for the CMBS market, Indest says. "We would saythe credit environment is improving, we had interest in the Polarisloan from both life insurance companies and banks," she says. Thecompany has more than 25 retail properties.