Operations at the Mall of Louisiana will be business as usual despite a recent declaration of bankruptcy.General Growth Properties, Inc., the owner of 158 shopping centers nationwide including the Mall of Louisiana, filed for Chapter 11 Protection on April 16 in an effort to “reduce and restructure” its debt — something David Keating, GGP spokesman, said will not affect business operations.The GGP-owned shopping malls in Louisiana include the Mall of Louisiana, the Alexandria Mall, Mall St. Vincent in Shreveport, the Oakwood Center in Gretna, Pecanland Mall in Monroe, Pierre Bossier Mall, the Riverlands Shopping Center in LaPlace and the Riverwalk Market Place in New Orleans.”GGP’s retail centers, office properties and master-planned communities will be open for business as usual as the company restructures our debt,” Keaton said. “Our properties will continue to operate, our employees will continue to come to work and get paid and shoppers will continue to shop.”Trenton Grand, a lawyer with the Grand Law Firm specializing in bankruptcy, said Chapter 11 is a specific type of bankruptcy reserved for companies lacking funds to pay their debt. It gives the company the exclusive right to present a plan to pay off debt within 120 days of the declaration. The plan must be approved by the creditors to which the money is owed.An increasing number of companies nationwide are filing for Chapter 11 because of the frozen credit lines associated with the failure of investment banking firms in New York, Grand said. Other companies that have filed for Chapter 11 include Circuit City and Linens ‘n Things.”Basically, imagine 10 people tied together by a rope and the 10th person is a 500-pound man, and he jumps off the side of a boat,” Grand said. “It’s going to pull everyone else in, and that’s basically a good way of describing what happened when several of these investment banking firms failed.”The cause of the bankruptcy declaration is economic reasons rather than a flawed operational model, Keating said.”Our core business operations remain sound, stable and profitable,” Keating said. “Our operational model is not flawed, and our properties are desirable and performing well — these are not the reasons we commenced these Chapter 11 cases. Rather, it was the unprecedented distribution in the real estate finance markets and the need to refinance or extend maturing debt.”—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]