Thirty-five cents. One quarter, one dime. That’s how much—or how little—it cost to buy one share of stock in General Growth Properties at the end of trading today.

It’s been a rough year for the 54-year-old mall developer and operator as it stock has tumbled—in concert with the real estate and retail markets—from a high of $67 per share in March 2007. Yet that stock was still valued at $38 as recently as June 18, when the company announced its plans for new South Street Seaport. Even when it presented those plans to the Landmarks Preservation Commission on October 21, when the stocked closed at $4.84, GGP remained confident in the future of the project. But that was before Monday’s report in The Wall Street Journal that General Growth might file for bankruptcy.

Bloomberg News blames the problems on the company’s $11.3 billion leveraged buyout of the Rouse Companies in 2004. “They took a big, big gamble, and it did not pay off,” real estate analyst Richard Moore told the financial news service. What, then, does this mean for the Seaport project? Nothing, insisted Jim Graham, a company spokesman:

Regardless of our situation, our properties and company will continue to operate, stay vibrant and remain open.  We are looking forward to a prosperous holiday season.

[As for the seaport:] Our intent is to continue as developer, that’s why we have invested so much in working with world-class planning experts and with the community to create our proposals.  Our plan for the South Street Seaport  sets the course for the future.  Getting the plan in place protects the community against market cycles by setting the framework for development over a multi-year window.   Approving the plan now sets the stage for development later when the economy improves.