By Brad Segall

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns several shopping meccas throughout the Delaware Valley, says it will promote a longtime executive to CEO later this year.

And he’s a man with a vision that could transform the traditional mall that we all know.

Ronald Rubin, longtime CEO of PREIT, is stepping aside this June, and Joseph Coradino (photo) will move into that position.

Coradino, 60, says he’s been training for this position for thirty years and calls Rubin a tremendous mentor.

Coradino says his vision for the company is to focus on the malls and make them more relevant to the shopper.

“On a number of our assets we sort of injected a little energy in them, with Cherry Hill and Plymouth Meeting and Voorhees Town Center, and I think there’s more work to be done in that arena,” he tells KYW Newsradio (see related story).

Coradino says malls are in great locations, and there’s an opportunity to introduce other uses — including office buildings, medical complexes, and residential units — truly making the shopping mall the center of the community.

As for the Gallery at Market East, a PREIT property in center city Philadelphia, he says they are on the cusp of trying to figure it out, and a transformation could be in the near future.