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PhillyDeals: Phila.-area malls in line for face-lifts

The mall landlord that controls the Philadelphia area's biggest shopping areas is giving each a face-lift, in hopes they will remain destinations amid the relentless rise of online and smartphone-based retail.

An entrance to the newly renovated and renamed Philadelphia Mills mall, formerly Franklin Mills, in Northeast Philadelphia.
An entrance to the newly renovated and renamed Philadelphia Mills mall, formerly Franklin Mills, in Northeast Philadelphia.Read more

The mall landlord that controls the Philadelphia area's biggest shopping areas is giving each a face-lift, in hopes they will remain destinations amid the relentless rise of online and smartphone-based retail.

Simon Property Group, based in Indianapolis, said Tuesday it was renaming its 25-year-old, 1.8 million-square-foot complex on Woodhaven Road Philadelphia Mills, dropping the Franklin Mills name and replacing its bright-colored building blocks at the main entrances.

Simon also controls the giant King of Prussia Mall, one of the largest shopping complexes on the East Coast. Simon is connecting the plaza and mall through a corridor of new stores.

The company has reorganized Philadelphia Mills into a cluster of fashion outlets, including Neiman Marcus Last Call and SaksOffFifth, at its north end, plus a new Walmart (at the former Boscov's site, replacing an older Walmart in a nearby shopping center) to anchor a group of discount stores at the south end.

"We needed to take the project in a new direction. This is not the same Franklin Mills you might remember from 25 years ago," Gregg Goodman, president of the Simon company's discount-shopping group, said. "Some of the spaces from when the property was first built had depths that were not appropriate for today's retail," he added. Walmart has demolished part of the old space for its new store.

Locally, Simon also owns the Philadelphia Premium Outlets at Limerick, Montgomery County; South Jersey's planned Gloucester Premium Outlets, where construction started last month; and Montgomery Mall, where it recently added a Wegmans grocery.

The company says it is looking to add 12 or more stores or restaurants at Philadelphia Mills over the next year, including the city's first Express Factory Outlet clothing store. Goodman says the company will add new signs and landscaping this year, and new skylights, lighting, and floors, and improved restrooms, WiFi, and device-charging stations in 2015.

Tech deals

RightCare, a Horsham company that uses software tested at the University of Pennsylvania's nursing school to help hospitals figure out when to send patients home, has raised $4 million from NewSpring Capital, of Radnor, to build a national sales and marketing system.

RJMetrics, a Center City firm that consolidates business data into a "cloud-based warehouse" for business applications, plans to use the $16.5 million it has raised from new investor August Capital and past investors Trinity Ventures and SoftTech Venture Capital "to hire more engineers," says co-founder and CEO Robert Moore.

Cloudnexa, a Navy Yard-based, cloud managed-services provider that is an authorized re-seller in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner Network, says it has struck a deal with machine-data specialist Sumo Logic, security software maker TrendMicro and business software monitor AppDynamics to market a joint solution to government, health care, construction and other Amazon Web Services clients.

And Picwell, a Philadelphia-based software "recommendation engine" that uses "predictive analytics to rate consumer health plan options, according to individual needs," launched last week under CEO Jay Silverstein, a former manager at UnitedHealthcare and Medco Health Solutions.

(215)854-5194 @PhillyJoeD

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