After struggling for several years to find a niche for its beleaguered shopping center, General Growth Properties appears ready to reposition Fallbrook Mall. The West Hills complex at Fallbrook Avenue and Victory Boulevard, which lost its movie theater and one of its anchor tenants in the past year, will be transformed into a big box center, housing The Home Depot and a Ralphs grocery alongside smaller specialty chains Linens ‘n Things and DSW Shoe Warehouse, among them and restaurants. The center will be reconfigured to eliminate the indoor mall that once housed a selection of small specialty retailers. Laemmle Theatres is also expected to join the lineup, although that lease has not yet been completed. Since it began to explore ways to overhaul the center, General Growth has considered a number of different options, from creating an outdoor shopping complex filled with fashionable specialty chains like the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica to an entertainment center. Though the mall is strategically located to draw a large, affluent population, its efforts have been stymied by its proximity to Westfield’s Shoppingtown Topanga and Northridge Fashion Center. Located within five miles of Fallbrook, these competitors include such a large array of upscale fashion retailers, movie theaters and department stores, their presence made it difficult for the center to find a distinctive niche. At the same time, General Growth has had to contend with changes in its current retail lineup. Earlier this year, J.C. Penney Co. closed its outlet store as part of a company-wide downsizing and earlier, General Cinema shut down its movie theater. “The other thing is they were an awkward size. They couldn’t get dramatically larger and so they couldn’t compete with the other (malls),” said Richard Giss, partner with the retail practices group at Deloitte & Touche LLP. “This is a change that really does allow the use of that property to be more in keeping with something that’s going to draw people. And the concept of these big box power centers has been working very well.” General Growth confirmed that it has signed leases with Linens ‘n Things and DSW and it has a letter of intent with Laemmle, but officials declined to discuss the larger retailers also expected to come on board or the changes planned in the mall’s configuration. However, a memo distributed to brokers in the area shows a completely revamped center with Home Depot as the mall’s centerpiece. The planned store will include a 150,000-square-foot warehouse-style unit with a 15,000- to 20,000-square-foot outdoor garden center, the company said. The existing space would have to be reconfigured to accommodate the store, which would be located at the back of the mall near Vanowen Street. “We have a signed lease to develop a new store at Fallbrook Mall,” said Chuck Sifuentes, a spokesman for Chicago-based Home Depot. “It’s predicated on the mall clearing a site. They need to relocate two or three existing tenants on the back side of the mall.” Home Depot would round out a lineup that also includes Mervyn’s, Kmart Corp., Burlington Coat Factory, Sports Chalet and Old Navy. Officials at Ralphs, which is shown on the site plan at the Northwest corner of the mall, did not return phone calls. Home Depot officials said that, together with their parking requirements, somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 to 600 spaces, their stores require about 10 to 12 acres of land, and they expect it will take some time for Fallbrook to clear the way for their requirements. Home Depot expects construction to begin in January 2003 with a completion date set sometime in the summer of that same year. Fallbrook earlier this year began clearing the way for a makeover by removing the smaller retailers that had been housed in the enclosed section of the mall. The property owners have held discussions with many different store groups. Some, such as Costco Wholesale Corp., were said to have discontinued talks because the mall is located too close to an existing Costco store. Home Depot too has another unit nearby in the Warner Center area, but officials at the store said that the area warrants a second location. “The West San Fernando Valley is so densely populated that in our mind it justifies development of another Home Depot store,” Sifuentes said. According to data released by the mall, some 146,000 people live within a three-mile radius of Fallbrook with an average household income of $80,264.
