Summary of Significant Accounting Policies (Policies)

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2019

Basis of Presentation:

The accompanying consolidated financial statements of the Company have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP") for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. They do not include all of the information and footnotes required by GAAP for complete financial statements and have not been audited by an independent registered public accounting firm.

The Company's sole significant asset is its investment in the Operating Partnership and as a result, substantially all of the Company's assets and liabilities represent the assets and liabilities of the Operating Partnership. In addition, the Operating Partnership has investments in a number of consolidated variable interest entities ("VIEs").

The Operating Partnership's consolidated VIEs included the following assets and liabilities:



	June 30, 2019		December 31, 2018
Assets:
Property, net	$	253,953	$	263,511
Other assets	19,811		23,001
Total assets	$	273,764	$	286,512
Liabilities:
Mortgage notes payable	$	222,284	$	125,273
Other liabilities	31,808		32,503
Total liabilities	$	254,092	$	157,776

All intercompany accounts and transactions have been eliminated in the consolidated financial statements.

The unaudited interim consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company's audited consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018. In the opinion of management, all adjustments (consisting of normal recurring adjustments) necessary for a fair presentation of the consolidated financial statements for the interim periods have been made. The preparation of consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of revenues and expenses during the reporting period. Actual results could differ from those estimates. The accompanying consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2018 has been derived from the audited financial statements but does not include all disclosures required by GAAP.

Adoption of New Lease Standard

Adoption of New Lease Standard:

On January 1, 2019, the Company adopted Accounting Standards Codification ("ASC") 842 "Leases", under the modified retrospective method. The new standard amended the principles for the recognition, measurement, presentation and disclosure of leases for both parties to a contract (i.e. lessees and lessors). In connection with the adoption of the new lease standard, the Company elected to use the transition packages of practical expedients for implementation provided by the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB"), which included (i) relief from re-assessing whether an expired or existing contract meets the definition of a lease, (ii) relief from re-assessing the classification of expired or existing leases at the adoption date, (iii) allowing previously capitalized initial direct leasing costs to continue to be amortized, and (iv) application of the standard as of the adoption date rather than to all periods presented.

The standard requires that lessors expense, on an as-incurred basis, certain initial direct costs that are not incremental in negotiating a lease. Initial direct costs include the salaries and related costs for employees directly working on leasing activities. Prior to January 1, 2019, these costs were capitalizable and therefore the new lease standard resulted in certain of these costs being expensed as incurred. For comparison purposes, the Company has reclassified leasing costs that were included in management companies' operating expenses to leasing expenses for the three and six months ended June 30, 2018, to conform to the presentation for the three and six months ended June 30, 2019. Upon the adoption of the new standard, the Company elected the practical expedient to not separate non-lease components, most significantly certain common area maintenance recoveries, from the associated lease components, resulting in the Company presenting all revenues associated with leases as leasing revenue on its consolidated statement of operations. For comparison purposes, the Company has reclassified minimum rents, percentage rents, tenant recoveries and other leasing income to leasing revenue for the three and six months ended

June 30, 2018, to conform to the presentation for the three and six months ended June 30, 2019. The new standard also requires the Company to reduce leasing revenue for credit losses associated with lease receivables. In addition, straight-line rent receivables are written off when the Company believes there is uncertainty regarding a tenant's ability to complete the term of the lease. As a result, the Company recognized a cumulative effect adjustment of $2,203 upon adoption for the write off of straight-line rent receivables of tenants that were in litigation or bankruptcy. The standard also requires that the provision for bad debts relating to leases be presented as a reduction of leasing revenue. For the three and six months ended June 30, 2018, the provision for bad debts is included in shopping center and operating expenses.

The standard requires lessees to classify its leases as either finance or operating leases. The lessee records a right-of-use ("ROU") asset and a lease liability for all leases with a term of greater than twelve months, regardless of their lease classification. Upon adoption, the Company recognized initial ROU assets and corresponding lease liabilities of $109,299, representing the discounted value of future lease payments required for leases classified as operating leases. In addition, the Company reclassified $59,736 from deferred charges and other assets, net, $5,978 from accounts payable and accrued expenses and $4,342 from other accrued liabilities, relating to existing intangible assets and straight-line rent liabilities. The Company's lease liabilities were increased at adoption by $15,268 for lease liabilities associated with finance leases that were previously included in other accrued liabilities. See Note 8—Leases, for further disclosure on the Company's adoption of the new standard.

Other Recent Accounting Pronouncements:

In August 2017, the FASB issued ASU 2017-12, “Targeted Improvements to Accounting for Hedging Activities,” which aims to (i) improve the transparency and understandability of information conveyed to financial statement users about an entity’s risk management activities by better aligning the entity’s financial reporting for hedging relationships with those risk management activities and (ii) reduce the complexity of and simplify the application of hedge accounting by preparers. The Company's adoption of the standard on January 1, 2019 did not have an impact on its consolidated financial statements.