THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Friday, September 20, 1996            TAG: 9609200610
SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MYLENE MANGALINDAN, STAFF WRITER 
                                            LENGTH:   43 lines

PENINSULA OFFICE BUILDING IS SOLD FOR $9.9 MILLION

Crown American Realty Trust, owner of the Patrick Henry Mall, sold an office building near the Newport News shopping center for $9.9 million to Minneapolis-based IDS Life Insurance Co.

The Johnstown, Pa.-based real estate company will use the money from the sale of the Patrick Henry Corporate Center to repay existing debt on the property, approximately $5.6 million. The remainder will be applied to general business purposes.

``By selling this property, we will be able to redeploy our assets in order to continue to enhance the long-term value of our mall properties,'' said President Mark Pasquerilla.

Selling the office building fits into the company's overall strategic plan, announced a year ago, said Christine Menna, a spokeswoman for Crown American.

``We'd be selling the non-strategic assets, the non-shopping malls,'' Menna said. ``The idea was to have funds to do improvements on our mall properties.''

The sale of non-mall properties allows the firm to make improvements without incurring more debt. None of the money has been specifically earmarked for improvements to Crown American's Patrick Henry Mall, Menna said.

Crown American opened Patrick Henry Corporate Center in 1988. The four-story office building encompasses 102,000 gross square feet. It's located next to Patrick Henry Mall, a 586,000-square-foot regional shopping center.

The deal has been brewing for several months, Menna said. Although Crown American still plans to renovate Patrick Henry Mall, which have been on the drawing board for some time, it has no immediate plans for the money, she said.

Crown American earned the spotlight earlier this year for secretly funding a so-called grassroots movement that opposes an upscale shopping center development at Newport News' northern end. The proposed Endview Mall, named after the historic Endview property that it would occupy, is being developed by Crown's Peninsula competitor, Mall Properties. New York-based Mall Properties owns Coliseum Mall in Hampton, south of Patrick Henry.

Crown American acknowledged its financial backing of the grassroots movement only after news reports linked the company to a Washington publicist and a Pittsburgh lawyer who had both done work for the company before. by CNB