Despite Misako's fancy Spanish limestone and glass decor, its bags cost $32, a tenth the price of bags at Coach and Louis Vuitton, established denizens of General Growth malls.
In 1993, she was named to the board of General Growth, a mall operator and one of her clients at Goldman.
General Growth, a mall developer and owner whose properties include South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan and Faneuil Hall in Boston, filed for Chapter 11 protection last year as it struggled with debt it took on for its acquisition of the Rouse Company in 2004.
The best grades, along with the highest growth rates in net asset value (21.2% annually over five years) and AFFO (15.4%), belong to General Growth, a mall REIT with properties nationwide.
"The changes have really been going on since about 2009 but what we've seen lately has been transformational," Florida Mall general manager Brian Hanson said.
In its New Jersey locations, General Growth Properties malls are among the top property tax payers in their municipalities.
Although General Growth's malls tend to be more conventional than Rouse's, the company has many prominent properties, including Ala Moana Center in Honolulu and the Grand Shoppes at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
But General Growth Properties, a mall developer based in Chicago, believes the old paradigm for a mall can be transformed further.
The Howard Hughes Corporation, which is primarily known for its vast master-planned communities like Summerlin, near Las Vegas, acquired the shopping center in 2010, when it was spun off from General Growth as the mall company was emerging from bankruptcy.
