General Growth Properties Inc., the ailing Chicago-based owner of three of the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area's largest shopping malls, has been granted a few more weeks to repay or refinance $900 million in mortgage loans that were due about a month ago.

The company said in a Dec. 15 press release that it now has until Feb. 12 to find some way to pay off the loans, which it owes on the 1.9 million-square-foot Fashion Show mall and the 450,000-square-foot Shoppes at the Palazzo, both in Las Vegas. Without the extensions, industry experts have speculated, General Growth might have been forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

The deadline for payment of the $900 million in loans already had been extended two weeks from a late November due date.

General Growth is the second-largest U.S. mall owner, and 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 put the two luxury Las Vegas properties, plus one other there, the 510,000-square-foot Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, up for sale in an effort to reverse a downward slide. That slide has caused its stock price to plummet by more than 96 percent, from more than $51 a share a little over a year ago to less than $2 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 malls and 26 community shopping centers.

In all, the company has accumulated about $27 billion in debt. Regulatory filings show that General Growth has another $3.3 billion worth of loans coming due this year on 36 properties. Along with property-secured debt, it has about $603 million in corporate debt coming due this year, all in the first quarter, filings show.