Chicago Daily Observer

General Growth Properties Inc., the Chicago-based shopping mall operator, warned Monday that it could be forced to file for bankruptcy if it is unsuccessful in raising funds to meet looming debt payments, according to a regulatory filing.

“Our potential inability to address our 2008 or 2009 debt maturities in a satisfactory fashion raises substantial doubts as to our ability to continue as a going concern,” the company said in its quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

General Growth is working with its syndicate of lenders to extend a Nov. 28 maturity date for $900 million related to two malls in Las Vegas, according to the filing.

Will retailer fight city’s denial of Chatham Market plan? Residents, local alderman stand ready to back big store.

On a windy Wednesday morning in March, a steady stream of shoppers bustle in and out of the Lowe’s at 83rd Street just west of the Dan Ryan Expressway on Chicago’s South Side.

The parking lot, decorated with a black wrought iron fence and rows of freshly planted trees, is filled with more than 100 cars ready to transport a range of purchases: windshield wiper fluid, toilet seat covers, Easter lilies and sheets of drywall.

Steps away sits a vacant swath of dirt occupied by only a few birds standing in puddles. It is here that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. wants to build its second city store. Late last week, the City of Chicago declined a request to allow Wal-Mart to build a store at the 50-acre Chatham Market, a shopping center being ... Read More...

The likelihood that Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will open its second store within Chicago city limits just got smaller.

The city of Chicago declined a request to allow the world’s largest retailer to build a store at the 50-acre Chatham Market on the South Side, a former steel plant site that the discount chain has been eyeing for at least four years.

Arnold Randall, commissioner for Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development, notified the project’s developer, Archon Group LP, a unit of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., on Friday that he would not let the project move forward