BY BRYAN C. SUALOG
and
PATRICIA L. SHOOK
Journal Staff
Guam Premier Outlet LLC confirmed the sale of the Guam Shopping Center/Guam Premier Outlet to GPO Delaware LLC which is part of the Mills Group in an agreement signed March 9. The sales price was not disclosed.
In an earlier edition of the Journal a Journal source reported that the shopping center sold for $85 million.
The Mills Group is a diversified real estate development and investment company headquartered in Honolulu. Its retail property portfolio also includes Tumon Sands Plaza on Guam The Shops at Wailea and the Waikiki Galleria in Hawaii.
Russell Robinson former president of GPO; has been named a partner of The Mills Group. He will have overall responsibility for both GPO and Tumon Sands Plaza; and focus on future Mills Group investments on Guam.
Monte Mesa general manager of GPO and Masato Yahata the general manager of Tumon Sands Plaza and their staff will all remain in their current positions.
Ned Dewey chief executive officer and managing partner of the Mills Group; described the GPO acquisition as a strategic move to strengthen The Mills Group retail operations on Guam.
"We are impressed with the management team at GPO and the dynamic retail environment they have created. We are looking forward to working with Russ Robinson to further expand our Guam investment portfolio " Dewey said.
Robinson said he is very excited about where this success will lead the organization.
"But we’re not resting comfortably "" we will continue to move aggressively to fine-tune the tenant mix and insert qualified retailers whenever and wherever they fit."
Robinson told the Journal there were no major changes in the works other than the addition of three restaurants later this year "" a Ruby Tuesdays and Japanese and Korean restaurants on pad sites "" separate from the main mall and food court areas.
GPO began development in phases in 1975. It is located on approximately 20.1 acres of land. It has 228 000 square feet of gross leasable floor area and additional pad sites. The GPO component of the property has 140 000 square feet of gross leasable area. It has an 11 000 square-foot food court and about 36 000 square feet of theater area. In 2005 the property was appraised for government tax purposes at $42.18 million. MBJ
