General Growth Properties Inc., the troubled Chicago-based owner of three of the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area's largest shopping centers, has negotiated a deadline extension until March 15 on two loans that reportedly total more than $4 billion.

The company had been negotiating with lenders since last November to delay the payment deadlines as it explores ways to repay or refinance some of its maturing debt, which totals about $27 billion. Another deadline was due to expire today, Feb. 12, on $900 million in loans collateralized by two luxury Las Vegas malls; as of late last week, it still hadn't been paid.

The company announced the extension agreement on the larger two-loan sum, involving what it called a 2006 senior credit agreement and a secured portfolio facility, on Jan. 30.

It didn't disclose the total dollar amount due by then, but the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the talks, put the figure at $4.1 billion and said it included a $2.6 billion credit line and a $1.5 billion bank loan.

General Growth said in a regulatory filing that, as a condition of receiving the deadline extension, it agreed to pay a fee equal to 5 basis points of the outstanding loan balances, plus certain other expenses and fees.

The Wall Street Journal said the March date is significant because that also is General Growth's deadline to pay $395 million in unsecured bonds, and that some of those bond holders have hired attorneys in anticipation of negotiating over that payment.

General Growth is the second-largest U.S. mall owner, with a portfolio of more than 200 regional shopping malls in 44 states, as well as ownership in master-planned community developments and commercial office buildings. Its properties include the 1 million-square-foot NorthTown Mall on Spokane's North Side; the 740,000-square-foot Spokane Valley Mall; and the 330,000-square-foot Silver Lake Mall, in Coeur d'Alene.

In October, the company replaced both its CEO and its president and began seeking buyers for the two Las Vegas properties, the 1.9 million-square-foot Fashion Show mall and the 450,000-square-foot Shoppes at the Palazzo, plus one other property there, the 510,000-square-foot Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, in an effort to reduce a downward slide. That slide has caused its stock price to plummet from more than $51 a share a little over a year ago to around 75 cents late last week.

General Growth, a real estate investment trust that's traded on the New York Stock Exchange, became owner of the three malls here in 2002 when it acquired Salt Lake City-based JP Realty Inc. in a $1.1 billion transaction that included 18 regional shopping malls and 26 community shopping centers.