By Chris Isaac

After PREIT, owner of the Springfield Mall, filed for bankruptcy on November 1 they announced that this would be a move that would wind up revitalizing them. Now that the company has been approved for an expedited Chapter 11 approval on November 24, they have gone into more detail about how they plan to rebound in 2021.

As reported by Natalie Kostelni of the Philadelphia Business Journal, the first benefit of this decision by PREIT is that it gives them an additional $150 million to borrow from their lenders.

However, the restructuring gives them more than just a loan. The plan PREIT has filed will also mean they are going to be paying a reduced dividend each quarter, ultimately saving them $60 million per year.

Perhaps most interesting is that PREIT has said they are also going to be open to the potential for selling off land, or even some of their malls.

Though they acknowledge that those are only possibilities, and would certainly not be anything they would pursue during the pandemic, due to the virus driving away sales and thus diminishing the value of their properties.

The CEO of PREIT, Joe Coradino, surmised PREIT’s stance on selling any of their property, saying, “One thing is for sure, right now isn’t a good time to sell anything as it relates to retail. There’s not a lot of capital chasing our sector but there is a lot of capital on the sidelines. As one looks to normalization and this sector moves to be more favorable, everything is on the table.”

So ultimately if PREIT wanted to go that route, they would need time for the retail world to recover. Fortunately, based on the upcoming results of their Chapter 11 filing, it looks like the retail group will indeed be granted that time.

Now it just remains to be seen what they can do to revitalize their properties in the coming year.

To learn more about PREIT’s plans, read the Philadelphia Business Journal’s article by clicking here.

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