Macerich's Santa Monica Place Wins "Best-of-the-Best" Global Shopping Center Award

SANTA MONICA, Calif., May 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Macerich (NYSE:MAC) announced today that its Santa Monica Place won the 2013 Best-of-the-Best VIVA Global Design and Development Award at this year's VIVA Awards presented by the International Council of Shopping Centers. The annual VIVA "Best-of-the-Best" Awards honors and recognizes the most outstanding examples of shopping center design and development, marketing sustainability and community service worldwide. ICSC is the premier global trade association of the shopping center industry with more than 60,000 members in 90+ countries.

"We purchased Santa Monica Place in 1999 recognizing it had to be repositioned and reinvented to better tie into the adjacent Third Street Promenade, an open-air shopping and dining district," said Art Coppola, Chairman and CEO of Macerich. "Our vision was to completely transform the property from a traditional mall into a new world-class outdoor destination that would attract the world's top retailers. That's exactly what we have accomplished."

The completely re-imagined property re-opened in August 2010, anchored by Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and a wide variety of specialty stores including CB2 and Nike plus a top roster of luxury brands, including Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton, Tory Burch, Michael Kors, Barneys CO-OP, Emporio Armani, Burberry and more. The center recently announced The Art of Shaving, Camper, kate spade new york, and LeSportsac would be opening this summer. In an engaging first for an open-air retail property, the entire third-level of Santa Monica Place is dedicated to food experiences.

"From the overwhelming reception at its opening weekend to the sustained performance of this exceptional shopping center, Santa Monica Place has met everyone's expectations for creating value -- for us, for retailers and for the community," said Randy Brant, Executive Vice President, Real Estate, for Macerich. "It is gratifying to have fostered a project that succeeds at so many levels."

For Santa Monica Place, the VIVA "Best-of-the-Best" Award joins a prestigious roster of design, development and sustainability awards for the project, including:

- Los Angeles Business Council/Design Concept - Westside Urban Forum - Southern California Development Forum/Commercial Building Award - ASLA, Southern California Chapter/Design Award - Otis College of Art & Design/Creative Vision Award - Los Angeles Business Council (LABC)/LA Architectural Retail Award - PCBC Gold Nugget Award/Best Retail Project, Grand Award - Los Angeles Business Journal (LABJ)/Best Retail Project - Retail Traffic SADI - New Open-Air Center - NAREIT Leader in Light - ICSC, US Design & Development/Design Gold, Sustainable Design Gold - MAPIC High Street Award/Best-of-the-Best.

The VIVA "Best-of-the-Best" Award comes on the heels of Santa Monica Place's selection as the Best High Street Retail Development for MAPIC this past fall. The MAPIC Awards honors significant retail-oriented development projects and is held each fall in conjunction with the international market for retail real estate conference held in Cannes, France. The High Street Retail category rewards the most innovative retail real estate project located on a 'high street', or primary business/tourist district, within a city center.

Macerich (NYSE: MAC) an S&P 500 company, is a fully integrated self-managed and self-administered real estate investment trust, which focuses on the acquisition, leasing, management, development and redevelopment of regional malls throughout the United States.

Macerich currently owns over 64 million square feet of real estate consisting primarily of interests in 61 regional shopping centers.  Macerich specializes in successful retail properties in many of the country's most attractive, densely populated markets with significant presence in California, Arizona, Chicago, Greater New York Metro and Washington, DC. Additional information about Macerich can be obtained from the Company's website at www.macerich.com.

SOURCE Macerich