While Park Meadows is the only Rouse holding in Colorado, theColumbia, MD-based company has other local ties. In the 1980s, itwas the original operator of the Shops at Tabor Center in DowntownDenver, an unanchored center in the Westin hotel and officecomplex. TrizecHahn originally developed Park Meadows, one of thetop malls in the country as far as price per square foot sales andonly second to the Taubman-owned Cherry Creek shopping center inthe metro area.

"Park Meadows opened Aug. 31, 1996, so almost exactly eightyears ago," Pam Schenck, general manager of Park Meadows tellsGlobeSt.com. Rouse bought Park Meadows from TrizecHahn a coupleyears after it opened. Schenck notes that Rouse several weeks agobought the vacated 200,000-sf Lord & Taylor department store atPark Meadows, which it plans to raze and redevelop into smallershops.

"The purchase has been made," Schenck notes. So unless GeneralGrowth comes up with a better idea for the Lord & Taylor site,she says they plan to go forward with existing plans. Theredevelopment of Lord & Taylor is being watched nationwide, asit is considered a creative way to deal with an empty departmentstore in an extremely well-performing mall. The Lord & Taylorstore closed as part of a national decision made by its parent, St.Louis-based May Co.