GREENWICH, CONN. — Greenwich-headquartered Starwood Capital Group has completed the acquisition of a 90 percent majority interest in seven shopping centers from Westfield Group.

The malls, which total more than 6.6 million square feet, include Gateway Mall in Lincoln, Nebraska; Metreon in San Francisco; Solano Mall in Fairfield, California; SouthPark Mall in Cleveland; Westland Mall in Miami; and Chicago Ridge Mall and Louis Joliet Mall in Chicago.

Westfield Group will still own a 10 percent minority interest in the properties. CBL & Associates has been selected for management services at six of the assets, including accounting, specialty retail, branding, marketing, maintenance and security.

“It is a compliment to our organization to have Starwood’s endorsement of CBL’s management expertise,” says Stephen Lebovitz, president and CEO of CBL. “Within our own portfolio of market dominant regional malls, we have been successful in generating improved performance by utilizing our operational capabilities and we look forward to applying that knowledge to the Starwood portfolio.”

Additionally, Starwood has formed a new subsidiary, Starwood Retail Partners, which will be based in Chicago and manage the newly acquired assets. Scott Wolstein has been retained as CEO.

“We are very excited about the opportunity to bring Starwood’s best-in-class investing and management expertise to the evolving retail space,” Wolstein says. “Shopping centers in the United States are undergoing a transformation as junior anchors and value retailers are rethinking store size and distribution needs, to the benefit of regional malls, including the ones we recently acquired from Westfield. We expect to build on this platform for years to come.”

Starwood Capital Group currently has nearly $20 billion of assets under management.

— Savannah Duncan