On tour: U.S. Secretary of Education John King Jr. and senior Department of Education officials will visit LSU on Friday as part of the “Opportunity Across America” bus tour. The event, which is open to the public, will take place from 10:15 to 11:15 a.m. in the Digital Media Center Auditorium, 340 E Parker Blvd., and will feature the education secretary and LSU President F. King Alexander. The visit will focus on the topics of college completion, higher education access and affordability. The “Opportunity Across America” bus tour also will also stop at University Terrace Elementary, 575 W. Roosevelt St., for a visit with Baton Rouge educators and students impacted by the recent flood.
Open meeting: The Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustees, a group of trustees assembled to oversee billions of dollars in damage restoration efforts related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, will meet in New Orleans on Sept. 28, The Associated Press reports. The group includes representatives from five Gulf states, the Department of the Interior, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture. In a news release, the group says the public meeting will include updates on the planning and implementation of restoration projects for natural resources damaged by the BP oil spill that followed the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in April 2010.
Bigger isn’t always better: Mall of Louisiana owner General Growth Properties, America’s second largest mall operator, implied at a real estate conference on Tuesday that it would be just fine if department stores like Macy’s and Sears leave some malls. Bloomberg reports that GGP is in discussions with Macy’s and other anchor tenants about which malls it wants the chains to leave. The reason: zero new malls are being built, constricting the supply of real estate. And with the traditional department store model becoming obsolete, GGP says it can fare better when an anchor like Macy’s leaves and frees up more space for groups of small stores that drive as much traffic to malls as old anchor chains do. The stores often pay more rent than the old anchors, which typically pay below-market rents, based partly on the outdated premise they’re the main traffic draw. Bloomberg has the full story.
