Another high-end retail outlet in Charlotte will carry the Simon brand. 

Simon Property Group has acquired the Phillips Place mall in the SouthPark neighborhood of Charlotte, according to a press release.

Phillips Place is a 134K SF, mixed-use, open-air retail center with more than 25 retail shops and restaurants, a 180-plus-room hotel and a multifamily residential property on the grounds.

Simon, a retail REIT that owns over 90 malls in the United States, paid $144.8M for Phillips Place, Charlotte Business Journal reported.

Phillips Place sits on 15.4 acres and was Charlotte’s first mixed-use development when it opened in 1997, CBJ reported.

Berkeley Capital Advisors listed the shopping plaza this past July, marking it as 95 percent leased and noting that the three most recent leases rented at an average of $100 per SF.

Big retail names at the shopping center include Ralph Lauren, Peter Millar and J. Crew.

With the sale, Simon now has five malls and retail outlets in the Charlotte area, including the nearby SouthPark mall, the city’s largest. This comes as Charlotte is seeing a surge of new retail and restaurant openings across its malls. 

The company’s acquisition of Phillips Place comes at a time when quality malls have been making a comeback in the United States following the retail slowdown at the height of the pandemic. 

Nationally, retail foot traffic recovered to prepandemic levels by Q3 2024 and this year is projected to surpass 2019 volumes, according to CBRE’s 2025 U.S. Retail Market Outlook.

GFP Real Estate, LLC has secured three lease agreements totaling 10,962 square feet at 40 Exchange Place in Financial District. Argus, LLC, operating as WOW Payments, has expanded its footprint at 40 Exchange Place, doubling its total space from 2,595 to 5,368 square feet. The merchant services provider initially moved into the building in 2016 and has now extended its lease to occupy additional space on the fourth and seventh floors. 

Spiro Harrison & Nelson, LLC, a litigation and dispute resolution law firm, has signed a new lease for 2,125 square feet on the 14th floor, previously occupied by another law firm. Additionally, Dovetail Investment Group, a financial services firm, has secured 3,469 square feet on the 6th floor, previously occupied by Berkman Funding. 

Allen Gurevich, senior managing director of GFP Real Estate, represented the owner, 40X Owner LLC and the tenant in the transactions. Masha Dudelzak of CBRE represented Spiro Harrison & Nelson. 

The newest hotel in Vilano Beach is a Hyatt Place with a twist. Unlike other hotels under the same flag, this Hyatt Place has a restaurant and rooftop bar. The 120-room hotel includes a ballroom with more than 7,000 square feet of space. It also has an indoor/outdoor flex space of 20,000 square feet. The 2019 building permit for the structure at 117 Vilano Road was for $15.4 million.

The Jacksonville Business Journal reports there has been a lot of activity in the Vilano area recently. The Holiday Inn Express is open at 140 Vilano Road with a new restaurant, Vilano Main Street Diner, planned at the property.

Another hotel in the area, the Hampton Inn Vilano Beach at 95 Vilano Road, recently sold. According to property records, Innisfree Hotels acquired the property on Aug. 30 for $21.185 million. Vilano Beach is a N. Florida town of 2,500 residents across the Tolomato River from St. Augustine.

All during the coronavirus pandemic, the narrative has been that Sun Belt cities have been growing, but the area with the largest population growth in the nation isn’t Miami, Atlanta or Charlotte, North Carolina.

Census data released last week revealed that The Villages, a retirement haven in Central Florida that spills across 32 square miles in three counties, was the fastest-growing metropolitan area over the past decade. The population jumped 38.9% between 2010 and 2020, from about 93,000 residents to about 130,000. 

A typical suburban street in The Villages

The Villages’ roots go back to the 1960s, when a Michigan developer, Harold Schwartz, sold land tracts via snail mail. He and a business partner, Al Tarrson, then developed their holdings as a mobile home park before seizing on the realization that amenities could really boost sales. They let seniors see their retirement years as a life stage full of fun and friends rather than one of decline.

Led largely by Schwartz’s son, H. Gary Morse, The Villages bought up land voraciously, built golf courses and offered “free golf for life.” The tagline still sticks today. A promotional site for the development says that for a $164-per-month amenity fee, residents get membership to multiple country clubs and free golf on 54 courses.

There is live entertainment every night of the year at three performing arts centers, three town squares and three movie theaters. There are also individual and competitive sports (including more than 100 pickleball courts), arts and crafts, music and theater, reading clubs and science activities — some 2,700 activities altogether. It has a fire department and hospital but relies on municipal police. 

The Villages is still largely controlled by Morse’s descendants, as are a TV station, a radio station and a newspaper, The Villages Daily Sun. As a census-designated place, the Villages is an unincorporated community that lacks a legally defined boundary and a typical governmental structure. It is controlled by Community Development Districts that have boards of supervisors. Residences are for ages 55 and up. Visitors age 1 and up must carry ID cards when visiting, and guests under 18 can’t stay more than 30 days in a row. 

Census data says 81.6% of the population is over age 65 and 98% of residents are White. The Villages is influential in elections and is considered a Republican stronghold. 

A New York Times short documentary produced this year showed a glimpse of life inside the “senior utopia.” Morse’s son explained how it had been founded “in the middle of nowhere” and that its organizing principle was that it had to be connected by golf carts. The film also showed how the development encroaches on neighboring properties and how sinkholes have been prompting some homeowners to move.

An independent news site competing with the Daily Sun, Villages-News.com, offers a glimpse at the dark side of the Villages — like families getting fined $150 for a yard ornament or Homeowners Associations officials’ conundrum over what to do with urns containing ashes of deceased homeowners. The site also illuminates development pressures, like out-of-state firms buying up multifamily complexes nearby and residents’ battles over whether apartments should be allowed. Census data indicates that 95.9% of homes in The Villages are owner-occupied.

According to The Villages Daily Sun, the area’s boom is expected to continue for the next two decades. The paper cited estimates from the state’s Bureau of Economic and Business Research showing that Sumter County, in which much of the Villages is located, now has about 168,000 residents, but that figure could climb to 190,000 in 2030 and 224,000 by 2040.

CORRECTION, AUG. 24, 11:15 A.M. ET: An earlier version of this story misstated the size of The Villages. The story has been updated.