The Daily Mall Reader: General Growth Properties

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General Growth Properties Turns 50
How serendipity led to mall empire

Shopping Centers Today - March 2004

(Excerpt) General Growth Properties has plenty to celebrate this year, the 50th anniversary of the opening of its first center. General Growth is North America’s second-largest shopping center owner and also one of the biggest third-party-management firms. Not bad for a company that stumbled into the shopping center development business almost by accident.

Seeking to turn the family grocery business into a chain, brothers Matthew and Martin Bucksbaum wanted to build a supermarket at a planned center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“The developer of the project couldn’t get it together,” said Matthew Bucksbaum. “So he sold the land to us, and we became the developer.”

That was in 1954, but General Growth has repeatedly shown similar strategic flexibility since then, embracing critical changes that have helped propel it to the apex of the industry.

Read the full article here.