The majority owner of Ala Moana Center, the largest shopping mall in Hawaii, is changing its name to GGP Inc., according a public filing by the Chicago-based real estate investment trust on Wednesday.
The change of General Growth Properties Inc.’s name to GGP will become official on Jan. 27.
The company said that its stock will continue to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol GGP.
Founded in 1954, GGP started out as a real estate developer of grocery store-anchored strip centers. After acquiring its first shopping center two years later, the company would evolve into one of the largest developers of regional shopping centers in the United States.
“GGP is in the retail real estate business,” Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of GGP, said in a statement. “The United States has 8 billion square-feet of retail real estate, with approximately 1.3 billion square-feet considered high quality. We control 8 percent, approximately 100 million square feet, of the best retail real estate in the country.”
GGP (NYSE: GGP) currently owns and operates 126 retail centers in 40 states, including Ala Moana Center in Honolulu, which is considered as the crown jewel of the trust’s portfolio. GGP previously also owned the area known as Ward Village, which came under the control of The Howard Hughes Corp. in 2010, following General Growth's emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization.
At the end of 2015, Ala Moana Center completed a $573 million redevelopment of a former Sears space that brought in the state’s first Bloomingdale’s and a repositioned Nordstrom store.