Now on sale: Westfield Group's four Ohio malls -- and 13 others

Among those who made non-binding preliminary offers: a partnership of the mall owner CBL & Associates Inc., a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. fund; Australian investor Queensland Investment Corp., a company of Starwood Capital Group and Madison Marquette and center owner Commercial Properties General Growth.

The Journal says that the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio "looks at four centers in Ohio Westfield." Web sites list his Westfield Belden Village in Ohio centers Township, Great Northern, North Olmsted, SouthPark in Strongsville and Franklin Park in Toledo.

"In total, the values ​​that Westfield lists on its books for each center is more than 2.5 billion dollars," the newspaper said. Liaison offers are due at the end of this month.

Sydney-based Westfield, which owns 55 centers in the United States, "put 17 properties on the market in April as it seeks to refocus on its properties the most lucrative of the United States," the Journal said. The 17 on the block "most are considered as centers of grade B, with annual sales of $ 300 to $ 380 a square foot. The industry average for closed centers is $ 351, according to Green Street Advisors Inc., A research firm that tracks real estate investment trusts. "

The Journal adds that the overall vacancy rate in the malls of the United States in the 80 largest markets was 9.1% in the first quarter, according to Reis Inc., the highest since at least 2000. "Retailers are closing stores are doing to poor properties and evil, if you buy a mall is a poor bet for the economy and the consumer will come back stronger than skeptics expect," according the newspaper.

"There's certainly a lot of interest from the investment community to determine what A B or C center is really worth," Benjamin Yang, an analyst at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, told The Journal. "They seek to provide a transaction indication of that. "

Thin margin: Ohio is part of what we might call the New Republican, according to this issue of the Fix column in the Washington Post.

Chris Cillizza writes that a new Republican National Committee memo about the presidential election of 2012 gives special attention to nine states - Ohio, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia - that Barack Obama won in 2008, but that former President George W.

hotels discount: hotel, Toledo, Ohio - Comfort Inn Toledo

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