The Moss-Rouse Company was founded as a FHA mortgage company with a loan from Hunter Moss's sister. Rouse leveraged his knowledge as loan guarantee specialist at the Federal Housing Administration to establish a Baltimore-based mortgage company specializing in FHA backed loans. Moss-Rouse hired a World War Two Navy friend, Churchill G. Carey from Connecticut General, who in turn provided capital for future projects. Carey would hold positions ranging from president to CEO of the mortgage company subsidiary.[1] In 1952-1953 the company built one of the first modern architecture office buildings on Saratoga Street in Baltimore, while also dropping its commercial lending business line. Jim Rouse hired his brother, Willard Rouse II, in 1952, and partner, Hunter Moss, phased out of operations, selling his shares of the company, while remaining temporarily on the board of directors.[2] The firm was renamed the James W. Rouse & Company, Inc., with Rouse owning 50% equity, his brother, Willard, 10%, and 40%, to company officers.[3]
On 20 June 1966, The James W. Rouse Company was renamed The Rouse Company.[4] The company has been credited as the pioneer of the first successful food court in an enclosed shopping mall, when the food court at the Sherway Mall in Toronto opened in 1971. It followed an unsuccessful attempt at the Plymouth Meeting Mall in 1968, which reportedly failed because it was "deemed too small and insufficiently varied."
The company moved its headquarters to the Cross Keys development, then to the project in Columbia, Maryland in December 1969.[5]
Columbia Research and Development was founded as a public company and Howard Research and Development was formed as a Rouse subsidiary in 1956 to raise capital for four mall projects and later to facilitate the Columbia Project with Connecticut General and Chase Manhattan as stakeholder with interest deferred loans.[7] In 1966 The James W Rouse Company was restructured as the Rouse Company, adding Howard Research and Development (HRD) as a separate entity shielded Rouse Corporation from debt liability of the Columbia development. HRD lost money, with new rules affecting the parent company as well. In 1974, HRD was refinanced.[8] Columbia Development Corporation was formed a subsidiary of HRD using subcontracted Rouse Company employees. In 1985 CIGNA (Connecticut General) divested its interest in HRD and the project back to Rouse for $120 million at a net loss.[9][10]
Rouse created the subsidiary company The American City Corporation to take advantage of the National Urban Policy and New Community Development Act of 1970, A HUD program which granted developers incentives and loans to build Title VII "New Towns" with mandatory percentages of low income housing projects. Rouse's former ACTION member, Leo Molinaro was selected to run the subdivision.[11] The symposiums held by the company gathered together investors like George Mitchell, who would go on to develop Woodlands, Texas using the Columbia model.[12][13] The subsidiary was based at "Two Wincopin" in the second office building in built in Columbia in 1968. It was renamed the American City Building, using the subsidiary to lease the empty space and develop the system of Public-Private partnerships that Rouse would use worldwide to minimize risk in developments using public debt.[14] The business was given its own postal office, the American Cities Station in 1977.[15]
The Columbia development was marketed as a progressive community for all races. In 1971, the company responded to pressure from the NAACP that the company was absent of African Americans at all management levels and its businesses in Columbia were predominantly white owned. The company responded with an affirmative action program in November 1971.[16]
In 1973, the former assistant attorney general of Maryland, Mathias J. DeVito, left the Rouse-owned legal firm of DLA Piper to replace James W. Rouse as President of the Rouse Company, and Rouse became Chairman.[17] DeVito cut staff from 1,700 to 500 to keep the company afloat in 1975.[18] In 1974, the Columbia development got a political boost as the population of Columbia supported a slate of at-large council candidates with Columbia interests, including Ruth U. Keeton, Lloyd Knowles, and Columbia's city manager, Richard L. Anderson.[19]
In 1979, Simon H. Schuer acquired a 7.5% interest in the Rouse Company. He was the creator of "The Shrink", a method where an investor buys an interest in a company, then orders stock buy-backs to make the interest more valuable. Schuer died the day after the purchase, and Trizec Properties then acquired the shares and bought a 25% stake. In 1986, the company attempted to purchase a majority share.[20][21][22]
In 1985, The Rouse Company absorbed all of Connecticut General's interests in the Howard Research and Development subsidiary. In 1986, former general manager of Columbia and executive vice president of development Micheal Spear became president as a successor to Rouse. In 1990, Spear died in a crash with his wife and one daughter in his Piper PA-31T Cheyenne attempting a single engine missed approach near Logan International Airport.[23][24]
In 1997, Anthony Deering took over as CEO of the company.[25]
On November 12, 2004, the Rouse Company was sold to General Growth Properties.[26]
In 2012, General Growth Properties spun off 30 "class B" malls into Rouse Properties, a new real estate investment trust named after (but otherwise unrelated to) The Rouse Company.[27]
Investments
Freedom shopping center (1953) - A 308 unit combination apartment complex and shopping center funded by Moss-Rouse.[28][29]
Talbottown (1957) - A Easton shopping center adjacent to the Spring Hill Cemetery where citizens rejected early Alexander Smith Cochran modernist architecture.[30]
Harundale Mall (1958) - Glen Burnie, MD. Financed by Connecticut General. First enclosed mall east of the Mississippi River. Closed in 1997, now Harundale Plaza, an outdoor shopping center.
Pocantico Hills (1962) - A cancelled "Village" concept for John D. Rockefeller's grandchildren. David Rockefeller would later finance $10 Million of the Columbia Project.[32]
Village of Cross Keys (1963) - First "planned community" conversion of a golf course to high-rise residential and commercial.[33]
^The Baltimore Sun. 5 April 2008. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
^Paul Marx. Jim Rouse: Capitalist/idealist. p. 39.
^Joseph Rocco Mitchell, David L. Stebenne. A New City Upon a Hill. p. 47.
^Mitchell, Joseph Rocco; Stebenne, David L. New City Upon a Hill. p. 94.
^"Columbia's first 25 years: a chronology". Baltimore Sun. 14 June 1992.
^Mitchell, Joseph Rocco; Stebenne, David L. New City Upon a Hill. p. 66.
^"The Story that Changed a County". The Times. 31 March 1965.
^William H Jones (16 August 1975). "Refinancing Completed For Columbia Planner". The Washington Post.
^Joshua Olsen. Better Places, Better Lives. p. 237.
^Caroline A Mayer (31 May 1985). "Rouse to Buy Out Columbia Partner: To Gain Complete Control Over Future Development of Planned Community". The Washington Post.
^Leo Molinaro (1988). Housing for People with Mental Illness: A Guide for Development.
^The American City Corporation (January 1971). Urban Life In New and Renewing Communities.
^Paul Marx. Jim Rouse: Capitalist/idealist. p. 160.
^Burke, Missy; Emrich, Robin; Kellner, Barbara (2008). Oh, You must live in Columbia. Columbia, Maryland: Columbia Archives. p. 113.
^Paul Marx. Jim Rouse: Capitalist idealist. p. 91.
^Joseph Rocco Mitchell, David L. Stebenne. A New City Upon a Hill. p. 53.
^Joseph Rocco Mitchell, David L. Stebenne. City Upon a Hill. p. 53.
^"Rouse To Aid Rebuilding City". The Baltimore Sun. 8 February 1969.
^Louis P. Peddicord (17 May 1970). "Rouse Proposes 'New City' On Staten Island: Creation Would House 150,000 Families On 10,600 Acres". The Baltimore Sun.
^Tom Horton (12 April 1996). "A Rouse failure, an island's gain Saved: Wye Island remains an environmental crown jewel after James Rouse was thwarted in his bid for its limited development". The Baltimore Sun.
^"Tennessee new town planned". The Baltimore Sun. 8 April 1973.
^Barry Maitland. The new architecture of the retail mall. p. 148.
