The Australian owner of a dozen area shopping centers entered December needing an infusion of capital to avoid financial collapse.
With nearly 1.8 million square feet of retail space in the lower Hudson Valley, Centro Properties Group numbers among the larger retail landlords in the area, with most of its holdings concentrated in Westchester County.
In late November, the company stated that unless its Australian lenders extend due dates on $4.5 billion in loans due in mid-December ”“ having already allowed a three-month extension ”“ the company might be forced to enter receivership. Centro has plans to split off its property management group from its troubled real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns title to its shopping centers.
The company”™s local tenants run the gamut, from A&P at 805 Mamaroneck Ave. in Mamaroneck, to Ashley Furniture on Route 211 East in Middletown. Centro”™s largest property locally is Cortlandt Towne Center in Mohegan Lake, which with 750,000 square feet is the second largest shopping center in Westchester County after the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers owned by Brook Shopping Centers Inc.
Nationwide, Centro owns 650 properties in 41 states totaling 104 million square feet of space. The company is the largest landlord for both TJX Corp. and Kroger.
Last January, the company appointed its head of U.S. operations Glenn Rufrano as chief executive officer, with Rufrano and his wife, Mary, relocating from Bellmore on Long Island to Melbourne where Centro is based. Centro has its main U.S. office in New York City.
A prominent voice in the industry, Rufrano is a professor and board member at New York University”™s Real Estate Institute, and is treasurer and secretary of the International Council of Shopping Centres. Rufrano joined the company through Centro”™s acquisition of New Plan Excel Realty Trust, a Manhattan-based REIT with a satellite office in Cortlandt.
In a presentation to investors in late November, Rufrano said the company”™s U.S. malls had a 92 percent occupancy rate as of Sept. 30, identical to the level in June.
“We have had a number of bankruptcies such as, Linens ”™n Things, Circuit City and Steve & Barry”™s, but due to ”¦ tenant diversification have not as yet lost significant rents,” Rufrano said. “We do expect more bankruptcies and must monitor this closely.”
If the stock price of another local landlord is any indication, retailers are holding up in the lower Hudson Valley in the early part of the recession, despite massive layoffs on Wall Street and a bleak prospect for yearend bonuses. Urstadt Biddle Properties Inc., a Greenwich, Conn.-based REIT that owns 15 shopping centers in Westchester County, is one of the few public companies locally whose shares exited November at the same level as the start of the year. With Urstadt Biddle”™s fortunes tied directly to that of its large concentration in local tenants, the company”™s stock provides one bellwether of the outlook for local retail establishments.
“I think that it”™s been a lot worse in other parts of the country,” said Wing Biddle, president of Urstadt Biddle and a South Salem resident. “You have areas like California where maybe the housing crisis has been a little more acute; situations where shopping centers were being built based on the assumption that housing was going to be built.”
