The Rouse Company

The Rouse Company was a publicly traded shopping mall and community developer from 1956 until 2004, when General Growth Properties (GGP) purchased the company. It was founded by Hunter Moss and James W. Rouse in 1939.

The Moss-Rouse Company was founded as a FHA mortgage company with a loan from Hunter Moss's sister. Rouse leveraged his knowledge as loan guarantee specialist at the Federal Housing Administration to establish a Baltimore-based mortgage company specializing in FHA backed loans. Moss-Rouse hired a World War Two Navy friend, Churchill G. Carey from Connecticut General, who in turn provided capital for future projects. Carey would hold positions ranging from president to CEO of the mortgage company subsidiary.^[1] In 1952-1953 the company built one of the first modern architecture office buildings on Saratoga Street in Baltimore, while also dropping its commercial lending business line. Jim Rouse hired his brother, Willard Rouse II, in 1952, and partner, Hunter Moss, phased out of operations, selling his shares of the company, while remaining temporarily on the board of directors.^[2] The firm was renamed the James W. Rouse & Company, Inc., with Rouse owning 50% equity, his brother, Willard, 10%, and 40%, to company officers.^[3]

The James W. Rouse Company built some of the first enclosed shopping malls, and it pioneered the development of festival marketplaces, such as Jacksonville Landing in Jacksonville, Faneuil Hall in Boston, South Street Seaport in New York City, Harborplace in Baltimore, and Bayside Marketplace in Miami. It also developed The Shops at National Place in downtown Washington, D.C., which opened in 1984–85.

On 20 June 1966, The James W. Rouse Company was renamed The Rouse Company.^[4] The company has been credited with opening the first successful food court in an enclosed shopping mall: the Sherway Gardens Mall in Toronto in 1971. It followed an unsuccessful attempt at the Plymouth Meeting Mall in 1968, which reportedly failed because it was "deemed too small and insufficiently varied."

The company moved its headquarters to the Cross Keys development, then to its project in Columbia, Maryland, in December 1969.^[5]

Its community projects include the Village of Cross Keys in Baltimore and the planned communities of Columbia, Bridgeland Community, Texas, and Summerlin, Nevada. To develop these projects, in 1962 Rouse brought on Bill Finley, who built a planned "company town", Ravenswood, West Virginia, was a former planner with the National Capital Planning Commission proposing planned cities, and was a proponent of public-private partnerships.^[6]

In 1956, the company founded Columbia Research and Development, a public company; and Howard Research and Development (HRD), a Rouse subsidiary, to raise capital for four mall projects and later to facilitate the Columbia Project with Connecticut General and Chase Manhattan as stakeholders with interest-deferred loans.^[7] In 1966, the company was restructured as the Rouse Company; adding HRD as a separate entity shielded Rouse Corporation from the debt liability of the Columbia development. HRD lost money, with new rules affecting the parent company as well. In 1974, HRD was refinanced.^[8] Columbia Development Corporation was formed a subsidiary of HRD using subcontracted Rouse Company employees. In 1985, CIGNA (Connecticut General) divested its interest in HRD and the project back to Rouse for $120 million at a net loss.^[9][10]

Rouse created the subsidiary company The American City Corporation to take advantage of the National Urban Policy and New Community Development Act of 1970, A HUD program which granted developers incentives and loans to build Title VII "New Towns" with mandatory percentages of low income housing projects. Rouse's former ACTION member, Leo Molinaro was selected to run the subdivision.^[11] The symposiums held by the company gathered together investors like George Mitchell, who would go on to develop Woodlands, Texas using the Columbia model.^[12][13] The subsidiary was based at "Two Wincopin" in the second office building in built in Columbia in 1968. It was renamed the American City Building, using the subsidiary to lease the empty space and develop the system of Public-Private partnerships that Rouse would use worldwide to minimize risk in developments using public debt.^[14] The business was given its own postal office, the American Cities Station in 1977.^[15]

The Columbia development was marketed as a progressive community for all races. In 1971, the company responded to pressure from the NAACP that the company was absent of African Americans at all management levels and its businesses in Columbia were predominantly white owned. The company responded with an affirmative action program in November 1971.^[16]

In 1973, the former assistant attorney general of Maryland, Mathias J. DeVito, left the Rouse-owned legal firm of DLA Piper to replace James W. Rouse as president of the Rouse Company, and Rouse became chairman.^[17] DeVito cut staff from 1,700 to 500 to keep the company afloat in 1975.^[18] In 1974, the Columbia development got a political boost when the population of Columbia supported a slate of at-large council candidates with Columbia interests, including Ruth U. Keeton, Lloyd Knowles, and Columbia's city manager, Richard L. Anderson.^[19]

In 1979, Simon H. Schuer acquired a 7.5% interest in the Rouse Company. He was the creator of "The Shrink", a method where an investor buys an interest in a company, then has the company buy more of its own stock to make the interest more valuable. Schuer died the day after the purchase, and Trizec Properties then acquired the shares and bought a 25% stake. In 1986, the company attempted to purchase a majority share.^[20][21][22]

In 1985, The Rouse Company absorbed all of Connecticut General's interests in the Howard Research and Development subsidiary. In 1986, former general manager of Columbia and executive vice president of development Micheal Spear became president as a successor to Rouse. In 1990, Spear died in a crash with his wife and one daughter in his Piper PA-31T Cheyenne attempting a single engine missed approach near Logan International Airport.^[23][24]

In 1997, Anthony Deering took over as CEO of the company.^[25]

On November 12, 2004, the Rouse Company was sold to General Growth Properties.^[26]

In 2012, General Growth Properties spun off 30 "class B" malls into Rouse Properties, a new real estate investment trust named after (but otherwise unrelated to) The Rouse Company.^[27]

• Freedom Shopping Center (1953) - A 308 unit combination apartment complex and shopping center funded by Moss-Rouse.^[28][29]
• Mondawmin Mall (October 1956) - Baltimore, Maryland Opened in October 1956 as an outdoor mall with partner Harry Bart. Now an enclosed mall.
• Talbottown Shopping Center (1957) - A Easton shopping center adjacent to the Spring Hill Cemetery where citizens rejected early Alexander Smith Cochran modernist architecture.^[30]
• Harundale Mall (1958 - 1997) - Glen Burnie, MD. Financed by Connecticut General. First enclosed mall east of the Mississippi River. Closed and demolished in 1997, now Harundale Plaza, an outdoor shopping center.
• North Star Mall (1960) - San Antonio, Texas
• Cherry Hill Mall (1961) - Delaware Township, now Cherry Hill, New Jersey.^[31]
• Pocantico Hills (1962) - A cancelled "Village" concept for John D. Rockefeller's grandchildren. David Rockefeller would later finance $10 Million of the Columbia Project.^[32]
• The Village of Cross Keys (1963) - First "planned community" conversion of a golf course to high-rise residential and commercial.^[33]
• Greengate Mall (1965 - 2001) - Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Closed in 2001, redeveloped as Greengate Centre.
• Planned community (1966) - Howard Research and Development formed to build planned community of Columbia, Maryland.
• Plymouth Meeting Mall (1966) - Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania
• Salem Mall (1966) - Trotwood, Ohio. Closed in 2005, demolished shortly thereafter.
• Eastfield Mall (1967 - 2023) - Springfield, Massachusetts. Closed and demolished in 2023.
• Almeda Mall (1968) - Houston, Texas
• Northwest Mall (1968 - 2017) - Houston, Texas. Severely damaged by Hurricane Ike in 2008 and exacerbated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Closed permanently at the end of March 2017, with only Carolyn Thompson's Antique Center remaining open until the end of 2021.
• Echelon Mall (1969) - Voorhees, New Jersey. Groundbreaking began to build the Echelon Mall (Now the Voorhees Town Center). The mall opened in 1970.
• Willowbrook Mall (1969) - New Jersey
• Planned community (1969) - Greater Hartford Corporation formed to redevelop Hartford, Connecticut suburbs with Connecticut General funding.^[34]
• Planned community (1970) - Failed project to develop 10,600 acres of Staten Island as "New Richmond".^[35]
• Sherway Gardens (1971) - Toronto, Ontario - Developed under the Rouse Company’s subsidiary, Sherway Gardens Limited. Credited as the company’s first successful food court. Now known as CF Sherway Gardens after Cadillac Fairview purchased the mall in 2000.
• The Mall in Columbia (1971) - Columbia, Maryland
• Perimeter Mall (1971) - Atlanta, Georgia
• Highland Mall (1971 - 2015) - Austin, Texas. Developed under the Rouse Company’s subsidiary, Austin Malls Inc. Closed on April 30, 2015, now a college.
• Woodbridge Center (1971) - Woodbridge Township, New Jersey
• Planned community (1972) - Failed project to develop Wye Island with 706 homes.^[36]
• Planned community (1973) - Failed project to develop 5,000 acres in Memphis, Tennessee as Shelby Farms with First Horizon National Corporation.^[37]
• Exton Square Mall (1973) - Square shaped enclosed mall in Exton, Pennsylvania. It was planned for permanent closure and demolition at the end of 2025, but that was delayed because the redevelopment plans were rejected by the township.^[38]
• Paramus Park (1974) - Paramus, NJ
• Faneuil Hall Marketplace (1976) - Boston, MA. The company revitalized the marketplace and the Quincy Market into a festival marketplace.
• Tampa Bay Center (1976 - 2002) - Two level enclosed mall in Tampa, Florida. Closed in 2002, demolished in 2005.
• Hulen Mall (1977) - Two level enclosed mall in Fort Worth, Texas
• The Gallery at Market East (1977) - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Renovated from 2016-2019 with the new name Fashion District Philadelphia.
• Beachwood Place (1978) - Cleveland, OH
• Governor's Square Mall (1979) - Tallahassee, Florida
• Harborplace (July 2, 1980 - Fall of 2026) - A downtown festival marketplace in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor built on the former Baltimore Steam Packet Company docks. The pavilions are scheduled for permanent closure and demolition in 2026.
• Santa Monica Place (1980) - Santa Monica, California - Jointly developed with the Hahn Company. Now an outdoor mall.
• White Marsh Mall (1981) - first part of the White Marsh Town Center project. Opened in 1981.
• Burlington Center (August 1982 - 2018) - Burlington Township, New Jersey. Opened August, 1982. Closed in 2018, demolished in 2021.
• South Street Seaport (1983) - Festival marketplace in Lower Manhattan, New York.
• The Waterside (June 1983) - Festival marketplace in Norfolk, Virginia. The Waterside Annex was closed and demolished in May 2016. The main portion of the Waterside is now known as Waterside District.
• Portside Marketplace (1984 - 1990) - Toledo, Ohio. Developed with Enterprise Development Co., which was also founded by Rouse. A failed festival marketplace that closed permanently just six years after its grand opening. The Portside was repurposed into a science center called COSI Toledo, now Imagination Station.^[39]
• The Shops at National Place (1984 - 2008) - Washington, D.C. Closed permanently in 2008. Temporarily reopened as a small food court called Eat at National Place in 2019. Closed again in May 2020.
• Sixth Street Marketplace (September 1985 - 2003) - Festival marketplace in Richmond, Virginia. Closed and demolished in 2003.
• Riverwalk Marketplace (1986) Festival marketplace in New Orleans, Louisiana. Now known as The Outlet Collection at Riverwalk.
• Owings Mills Mall (July 1986 - 2015) - Owings Mills, Maryland. Closed in 2015, demolished in 2017. Now Mill Station, a lifestyle outdoor shopping center.
• Bayside Marketplace (April 1987) - Festival marketplace in Miami, Florida.
• Jacksonville Landing (June 1987 - July 2019) - Festival marketplace in Jacksonville, Florida. Closed and demolished in 2019.
• The Gallery at Harborplace (September 1987 - January 2022) - Baltimore, MD. A four-story shopping mall adjacent to Harborplace’s Pratt Street Pavilion, the 111 S. Calvert Street office tower which opened the same year, and the Renaissance Harborplace Hotel. The food court closed permanently and was converted to office space in 2016. The mall itself closed permanently in 2022.
• Harborplace Tower (September 1987) - 28-story office tower built adjacent to the Gallery at Harborplace which opened the same year, and the Renaissance Hotel, which opened a year later.
• Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel (1988) - 12-story hotel built adjacent to the Gallery and Harborplace office tower.
• Westlake Center (1988) - Seattle, Washington.^[40]
• Underground Atlanta (1989) - Renovation.
• Pioneer Place and Pioneer Tower (1990) - Portland, Oregon Five-story shopping center and office complex.
• Arizona Center (1990) - Phoenix, Arizona Shopping center and office complex.
• Collin Creek Mall (1995 - July 2019) - Plano, Texas. Built in 1981 by Federated Stores Realty (now Macy’s Inc.); Rouse acquired 30% in 1995 and the rest in 2002. Closed and partially demolished in 2019.
• Oviedo Mall (1997) - Oviedo, Florida. The last indoor mall built by Rouse.
• Towson Town Center (1998) - Towson, Maryland - Acquired by Rouse from TrizecHahn after the mall completed a massive renovation and expansion in 1991.
• Fashion Show Las Vegas (2000) - Paradise, Nevada Also acquired by Rouse from Hahn. Renovated from 2000-2003.
• The Shops at Merrick Park (2002) - Coral Gables, Florida The last project The Rouse Company completed entirely before being acquired by General Growth Properties.
• The Shops at La Cantera (2005, phase I only) - San Antonio, Texas Jointly designed with the USAA Real Estate Company. Rouse developed Phase I of this mall. After General Growth Properties acquired Rouse in 2004, General Growth Properties finished the rest of the mall by completing Phase II in 2008.