Taking stock It’s been a tough week for General Growth, and not just because the community is giving the real estate giant a hard time on its plan to redevelop South St. Seaport. General Growth’s problems now look much bigger than the local community board: The company’s stock dropped 70 percent in the last month, much of that in the last week, leading to rumors that G.G.P. would get bought out, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Likely takers would be the biggest international mall conglomerates, Simon Property Group Inc. and Westfield Group, which plans to develop the World Trade Center mall someday.
G.G.P. closed at $5.40 Wednesday afternoon.
General Growth has two strikes against it. First, the company has $27 billion in debt and is struggling to refinance $1.2 billion of it this year, the Journal said. Second, the declining economy means consumers are less likely to go shopping in General Growth’s more than 200 U.S. malls.
Bloomberg News also reported the stock declines this week and said that Jeffrey Laverty, an analyst at Oscar Gruss & Son, has a “sell” rating on General Growth’s shares, and Standard & Poor’s lowered General Growth’s corporate rating from BB to B+.
What this could mean for South St. Seaport is anyone’s guess. Jim Graham, G.G.P. corporate spokesperson, said last week that the project was one of the company’s top priorities, but this week he didn’t return UnderCover’s phone call.
Give me Deutsche
City Councilmember Alan Gerson used his recent hearing on the World Trade Center to float his idea that an auditor general be put in charge of monitoring the rebuilding.
Chris Ward, the Port Authority’s executive director, unsurprisingly didn’t go for the idea. Ward said Lower Manhattan already has one go-to person for all W.T.C. rebuilding issues, and his name is Chris Ward.
Gerson sounded skeptical and raised the question of the one project no one ever seems to take responsibility for when things go wrong: 130 Liberty St., the contaminated former Deutsche Bank building whose demolition has been plagued by delays and where a fire killed two firefighters last year. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation owns the building.
“Am I hearing you say we can look to the Port Authority to tell us and to tell the rest of the world, for example, whether or not the L.M.D.C. is meeting its schedule in terms of taking down 130 Liberty St.?” Gerson asked Ward.
“That’s the governor’s sense and that’s what he’s asked me to do, so yes,” Ward replied.
The usually verbose Gerson was silent — momentarily.
Oscar glitter
Yup, Downtown City Council candidate Pete Gleason is ready for a showdown with Councilmember Alan Gerson if the Councilmembers vote to give themselves and Mayor Mike Bloomberg the right to run for a third term, and if Gerson takes the opportunity. Legendary actor Gary Cooper’s daughter, Maria Cooper Janis, is supporting Gleason and is bringing daddy’s Oscar for “High Noon” to Gleason’s first fundraiser on Sunday, Oct. 26 at … well, you can guess the time. Of course Gleason now has almost no shot at getting any relative of John Wayne to endorse him. Wayne called the cinematic classic in which a small town deserts its sheriff fighting the bad guys “the most un-American thing I’ve ever seen.”
Kelly booked
Residents who are concerned that the N.Y.P.D.’s security plan will turn the entire area around the World Trade Center into a closed-off zone like Park Row will have a chance to tell Police Commissioner Ray Kelly exactly how they feel.
Kelly will speak to Community Board 1 about the plan Mon., Oct. 27 at 6 p.m., board chairperson Julie Menin tells UnderCover. The location has not been determined.
“This is very good sign,” Menin said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get through to him.”
Debate
Financial District resident John Chromczak, the gay Republican running for State Senate Downtown, did not exactly win over the crowd at the LGBT Community Center Monday night debating his heterosexual Democratic opponent, Dan Squadron.
Chromczak told the skeptical audience that if he wins and the G.O.P. maintains control of the State Senate, he believes he will be able to convince Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos to reverse his position and bring the blocked same sex marriage bill to the floor for a vote.
On that issue, he was at least with the audience, which was not pleased to learn he wants to make abortions illegal.
In response to a question about an overemphasis on crime and punishment in Albany, Squadron said Republicans focus on mandatory sentences and harsh drug laws to justify an oversized prison system. For inexplicable strategic reasons, Chromczak told the audience of his Utica roots and the importance of prisons as an economic stimulus for Upstate.
Assemblymember Deborah Glick, a lesbian who represents part of Downtown, is running unopposed so she used her time at the center to lambaste Chromczak and the arrogance of men who oppose abortion.
The debate was moderated by Paul Schindler, editor of our sister publication, Gay City News.
Squad is forming
Speaking of Dan Squadron, he is planning to name John Raskin his chief of staff assuming he wins the State Senate race in the ultra-blue Democratic district in November.
It appears Raskin, a West Side housing advocate who also helped defeat the Jets’ Manhattan stadium project, will join the illustrious ranks of former community organizers like City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and presidential candidate Barack Obama before the year is out.
Raskin, 27, and Squadron, 28, both made City Hall magazine’s “40 Under 40” list of rising stars.
And speaking of presidential politics, we hear Squadron’s campaign manager for the primary, Mary Cooley. is now “freezing in Minnesota” trying to keep the state blue for Obama. Cooley, who worked for two subsequent Squadron endorsers — Borough President Scott Stringer and Assemblymember Brian Kavanagh — before joining the Democratic senate nominee, is likely to be tapped to run Squadron’s district office in January.
