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October 30, 2008
Forest City in the News
The Associated Press, via WashingtonPost.com, District Announces Plan for $42M Anacostia Park
The District of Columbia has reached an agreement with a developer to build a $42 million park along the Anacostia River.
The 5.5-acre park in southeast Washington will be constructed blocks away from the Washington Nationals' baseball stadium. The project is part of The Yards, a 42-acre development that will include offices, apartments and 400,000 square feet of retail space and restaurants.
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The developer, Forest City Washington, says the park is expected to be completed by spring 2010. D.C. has provided money for construction by selling a bond against future taxes that will be generated by neighboring development.
The Tampa Tribune, Shops At Wiregrass Ready For Action
A profile of Greg Lenners, The Shops at Wiregrass mall manager:
For the past decade, Lenners, 42, has worked his way up Forest City's management ladder to become the head of Wiregrass, the company's newest mall, which opens to the public at 10 a.m. today at State Road 56 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard.
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Having opened six malls as part of Forest City's opening-day strike team, Lenners was the calm center amid the hustle and bustle surrounding him. The mall should open with 75 percent of its stores ready, he said as crews hung awnings and laid pavers.Lenners acknowledged managing an open-air mall in Florida - where torrential rainfall is possible half the year - could be different from his years in arid southern California.
St. Petersburg Times, Pasco mall developers ask: Downturn? What downturn?
Who woulda thunk that "the controversial $4-billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, N.Y." would get a mention in an article about the opening of a mall "regional lifestyle center" in Tampa? The irony is that Forest City took special pains to plant mature trees, while they were cutting them down in Brooklyn.
At 10 a.m. today the $156-million Shops at Wiregrass opens at the epicenter of the local homebuilding collapse and the worst retailing climate in decades.
"Economies go up and down all the time, so we build for the long term," said Jim Richardson, East Coast retail development boss for Forest City Enterprises Corp., which built Wiregrass in a joint venture with Goodman Co. of West Palm Beach. "But if we tap into the pent up demand we saw here last weekend, this project will turn out wonderfully."
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The Shops at Wiregrass was built to double as a downtown for a 5,000-acre residential community with 16,000 homes, condos and apartments. The project is laid out in a nostalgia-laden crescent like a Main Street lined with parking meters and a town square. Parking garages shorten the walk and protect against the elements. Forest City bought mature trees to make the place look like it has been there for a decade.
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Cleveland-based Forest City, which boasts a $10-billion real estate portfolio, has one of the nation's most ambitious commercial development pipelines. Wiregrass is the company's fifth similar project to open this year. It is also building the controversial $4-billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Posted by lumi at October 30, 2008 4:23 AM