The South Florida Business Florida From the April 11, 2003 print edition Darcie Lunsford  

The metal security gates fan out in a checkerboard grid, guarding empty booths.

Banner signs stripe the tops of many: Rebecca Jewelry Dis-count, Gifts-O-Rama, and Josie's $5 or Less Store. An empty, two-story carousel collects dust, its stampede of bouncing horses frozen in an eerie halt.

But Weston-based Millennium Development Enterprises plans to change that.

The small retail developer signed a 60-year lease on April 3 to take control of the abandoned Hollywood Super Mall at U.S. 441 and Hollywood Boulevard.

The plan is to fill the 935,140-square-foot mall, a faded testament to 1970s retailing, with 850 booth-based vendors, 40 shops, food stands, a 35,000-square-foot farmers market and a family entertainment center.

If Millennium can do that, it promises to create nearly 2,600 new jobs, $657 million in sales, and $39 million in sales tax within five years, according to a September economic impact study.

Millennium's plan sounds similar to one floated last year by Pompano Beach flea market operator Daniel Shooster.

Shooster's deal died this winter and that's when Millennium stepped in.

Terms of Millennium's lease with the mall's New York-based owners call for the firm to pay about $3.5 million a year in rent with an option to buy the mall in 10 years for $33 million, according to Millennium Chairman Ignacio Martinez II.

Millennium also expects to pump about $20 million into renovations, said Martinez, who is redeveloping the center with his father, brother and partner Noel Epelboim, a local engineer.

Caracas flea markets

The Martinez family, which moved to South Florida from Venezuela about eight years ago, owns three flea markets in Caracas. The family, under its Millennium moniker, also owns 450,000 square feet of retail centers and a new condominium development in western Broward County.

Millennium's deal comes after mall owners failed to seal a deal with Shooster, owner of the Festival Flea Market Mall, whose Web site says it is more than 400,000 square feet.

Shooster also planned a flea market-style shopping center and entertainment hub in the building.

"Shooster wasn't ready to make up his mind so we moved forward without him," said Chiam Stern, one of the mall's New York owners, who paid about $12 million for the property in 1997.

Shooster could not be reached for comment.

Millennium lawyer Roy Oppenheim said that when his clients found out that Shooster was out of the picture, they pounced.

"We only went into intense negotiations with them in March," said Oppenheim, a senior partner with Oppenheim Pilelsky in Weston. "We did the whole deal, literally, from start to finish, in 10 days."

Martinez said he began chasing the mall deal two years ago because the family was interested in bringing their South American flea market know-how to the United States.

But Shooster became the lead contender.

"We were always the backup option," he said.

Offshore hedge fund

The family created Millennium Equity last year, an offshore hedge fund that pools cash from Latin American investors for U.S. real estate deals. The fund now has about $1.5 million in it, Martinez said. The objective goal is to build up the fund's cash position and use it as leverage to buy Millennium developments once they are up and collecting rent.

Millennium's plan, which may include taking the fund public in about five years, comes as retailers nationwide deal with sluggish sales spurred by the nation's wobbly economy and general uncertainty about terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Many national chains have put their expansion plans on ice until these economic storms blow over.

The Super Mall had a lineup of major retailers - including department stores Burdines, Jordan Marsh and JCPenney - when it opened in 1974 as Hollywood Fashion Center. The death knell for the mall was in 1992 when Burdines and JCPenney moved down the road to the new Pembroke Lakes Mall.

For the rebirth, Millennium plans to target local tenants, generally regarded as riskier than national retailers, but more apt to make a move even in uncertain times.

"We really feel like they are the ones that are going to take the largest market position right now," Martinez said.

E-mail real estate editor Darcie Lunsford at dlunsford@bizjournals.com.

 Home > News > Business News > Article <a href=reuters.com>Reuters Sun April 13, 2003 11:14 PM ET

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices opened the week one percent down on Monday, weighing up the prospect of a return of Iraqi crude exports to the world market against possible supply curbs by the OPEC cartel to avert a potential price crash.

U.S. light crude fell 29 cents to $27.85 a barrel.

Renewed downward pressure on oil prices came after weekend comments by a senior U.S. engineer that Iraq's giant Kirkuk oilfields could start pumping within weeks.

The northern fields are capable of producing up to 900,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iraq's pre-war production of roughly 2.5 million bpd.

"It's a definite possibility that could be just a few weeks away," said Tom Logsdon, a senior member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers charged with repairing Iraq's oilfields.

Logsdon said the southern oilfields, where output was up to 2.1 million bpd before the war began on March 20, could be up and running in less than three months.

"Depending how quickly workers come on line, we estimate we will have between 330,000 and 1,000,000 bpd being produced within 12 weeks from now," said Logsdon.

Oil prices fell about 10 percent after the start of the war as U.S. and British forces quickly secured a majority of Iraq's oil infrastructure in the south of the country and traders predicted a fairly swift end to hostilities.

But any resumption of vital crude exports will be up to an interim authority in Baghdad in conjunction with the United Nations, where some analysts forecast that diplomatic wrangling will keep Iraqi barrels off the market for many months to come.

VENEZUELA SUPPORTS OPEC CUT

Iraq's crude could hit world markets just as demand is expected to wane by up to two million bpd. The second quarter sees a seasonal slump between winter demand for heating and the peak consumption of gasoline during summer vacations.

Compounding the demand downturn, many commercial airlines have slashed routes due to the spread of the flu-like SARS virus around the globe.

At the same time, supplies from OPEC producers are running almost two million bpd above the group's self-imposed ceiling, to counter supply disruptions from Venezuela, Nigeria and Iraq.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries is planning an emergency meeting later this month or in early May to discuss tightening compliance to current output quotas or even possible curbs to formal limits.

"Higher prices, slower economic growth, warmer weather in the northern hemisphere and lower jet travel due to the SARS outbreak have all depressed the demand for oil," said David Thurtell, commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank in Sydney.

"We expect that with oil prices heading lower, OPEC will try to be proactive in attempting to keep oil prices at, or above, $25 a barrel," Thurtell said in a research note.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Friday that South America's biggest oil producer was ready to back any proposed OPEC supply cut to support prices in the group's target band of $22 to $28 a barrel for OPEC's reference basket of seven crudes.

OPEC's basket price stood at $25.40 on Thursday, compared with a monthly average of $31.54 in February.

"If we have to cut production by one million bpd, or 1.5 million bpd, or 1.8 million bpd, we would be ready to cut," Chavez told a news conference.

An anti-Chavez strike in December and January slashed crude output in Venezuela, usually OPEC's third biggest producer, from 3.1 million bpd to just 40,000 bpd at its low point.

Officials at state oil firm PDVSA said at the weekend that production had recovered to pre-strike levels at about 3.05 million bpd for crude output and 150,000 bpd of condensate production.

By Associated Press- Boston.com, 4/13/2003 19:35

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) Venezuela's oil production has risen to its highest level since before a two-month strike crippled operations, the energy minister said Sunday.

Rafael Ramirez said Venezuela was pumping 3.2 million barrels a day, up slightly from 3.1 million at the end of March. Venezuela's output quota determined by the OPEC oil cartel is 2.8 million barrels a day.

''We are compensating for what we couldn't place on the market'' during the strike, Ramirez told the government news agency, Venpres.

Production dropped below 200,000 barrels a day during the walkout, which began in December. The government fired 17,000 of the state oil company's 40,000 workers and gradually restarted paralyzed oil refineries.

The strike was called to force President Hugo Chavez to step down or agree to early elections on his rule but petered out in February without achieving its objectives.

Venezuela depends on oil exports for almost half of government income and 80 percent of foreign currency receipts.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2003 By: David Coleman

President Hugo Chavez Frias has promised to reconcile a deeply divided Venezuelan population as he celebrated the first anniversary of his return to power after the brief and unsuccessful opposition coup d'etat in April 2002 which served as a prelude to bitter feuding and an equally unsuccessful two-month labor-business stoppage aimed at forcing his democratically-elected government out of power.

The celebration came amid heightened tensions after a bomb blast at the central Caracas venue where government and opposition have just concluded final phases in protracted negotiations on legal procedures leading up to a revocatory referendum which may be launched mid-August with the election itself perhaps as early as December.

Chavez Frias had presided over the closing ceremony of an international forum supporting his Bolivarian Revolution with thousands of supporters thronging the streets outside. Speaking to international wire service reporters, one of the President's supporters described the events of last April 11 as "terrible for the country ... thank God that it was possible to restore democracy just two days later!"

Chavez Frias had been taken prisoner by right-wing extremist military officers who had had the support of the United States of America to install business leader Pedro Carmona as a "transitional" President of the Republic.  Once he was sworn in, however, Carmona Estanga proceeded to take upon himself dictatorial powers and immediately decreed the dissolution of  the National Assembly, Supreme Court and the nation's 1999 Constitution.

Although privately-owned TV channels had implemented a news black-out as the inevitable reversal of Carmona Estanga's fortunes came, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans converged on the Miraflores Presidential Palace demanding Chavez Frias' return ... they were told he had resigned and was being flown to Cuba ... but he was quickly located to an offshore military base at La Orchila and flew back home by helicopter to retake the Presidency in the early hours of April 14.

Carmona Estanga has since evaded trial for his part in the failed coup d'etat, escaping from house arrest to flee to the Colombian embassy from whence he was afforded asylum in Bogota.  Another coup leader, Trade Unions boss Carlos Ortega recently went fugitive before holing up at the Costa Rica embassy in Caracas to gain asylum in San Jose, and Carmona Estanga's replacement at the head of the Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Fedecamaras) has flown to the United States on the pretext of needing urgent medical attention for high blood pressure...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Organization of American States (OAS) had announced, Friday, that agreement had been reached to "pave the way for a midterm referendum" on Chavez' Presidential mandate which had been on the table since the nation's 1999 Constitution was ratified in a national referendum, December 1998.  OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria says an agreement is to be signed after Easter, although Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel says the agreement must first pass the formality of Executive approval.

Chavez Frias was elected to a 6-year term in 2000, accusing traditional elitists of opposing his plans to equitably distribute Venezuela's oil riches to millions of Venezuelans who have been held in abject poverty through more than 40 years of politically and economically mis-managed pseudo-democracy since the overthrow of the last military dictatorship.

Disenfranchised business and labor mafia leaders have accused Chavez Frias of imposing an authoritarian regime where they must pay regular taxes and agree to a series of judicial, land and labor reforms that would be considered self-evident elsewhere.

The main thrust of the OAS document, forced the disloyal opposition to play by Constitutional rules they have ignored with impunity for the last four years, while Chavez Frias will accept the fact that if the democratic will of the people is that he should leave office, he will do so, handing over to a democratically elected successor as prescribed in Constitutional regulations ... "I'm sure that we will win any referendum, but if the people choose that I should go, I have no other option but to obey the people," Chavez Frias has said.

Meanwhile the privately-owned opposition media is unrelenting in its anti-government propaganda hyping up theories that Saturday's bombing, which destroyed three floors of the Teleport building at Plaza Venezuela was intended to intimidate the opposition while, for its part, government sources were claiming that blame should be apportioned to "coup-plotting sectors of the opposition."

Referendum 2003 discuss the pros and cons of a revocatory referendum

President Hugo Chavez Frias express your opinions on the Presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias and his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Circles Are Bolivarian Circles a Venezuelan form of Neighborhood Watch Committees or violent hordes of pro-Chavez thugs?

Venezuela's Opposition What is it? Is a force to be reckoned with or in complete disarray?