Midwestern retailer Kohl’s is eyeing a spot that would be only its second San Fernando Valley location since entering the Los Angeles market in 2003. But the retailer is running into considerable opposition from neighbors of the Granada Hills location who say that the store is too big for the neighborhood shopping center and would create too much congestion along a thoroughfare that is not well-suited to the added traffic. The locale, at Chatsworth Street and Zelzah Avenue, is a recently acquired shopping center that the owners hope to rejuvenate with a Kohl’s anchor that they say will be nicely designed to meet neighborhood specifications. Granada Village, built in the 1960s, has languished for several years since Ralphs parent Kroger Co. acquired Hughes Markets resulting in two Ralphs groceries across the street from one another. The center’s new owner, Regency Centers, purchased it about 18 months ago as part of a $3 billion portfolio, attracted by the demographics of the area and the opportunity to remodel it. Kohl’s, they say, fits well into the existing center, which already houses a TJ Maxx and a Stein Mart, chains that cater to moderate income shoppers with fashion-forward merchandise, much like Kohl’s. Retailers often choose locations adjacent to similar stores believing that the proximity increases the customer traffic for all the stores. “My job is to marry the needs of the neighbors with the interests of tenants,” said Enrique Legaspi, vice president, regional officer for Regency Centers, who said he went door to door to talk to the immediate neighbors of the center to plead his case. “So obviously we spent time looking at the options and, through interviews that I conducted with shoppers, I found out people felt there were enough grocery options in the area, but people felt there was a need for some quality tenancy uses.” But the addition of Kohl’s, which would boost the center’s size from a current 240,000 square feet to 276,000 square feet, has raised the ire of some neighbors, and after initially okaying the project, the neighborhood council has since resolved to oppose it. The debate will take further shape at an area planning meeting scheduled for June 21, but in the meantime, Kohl’s is taking heat not unlike that typically reserved for behemoths like Wal-Mart. Among the arguments brought forth by the neighborhood council is that a store like Kohl’s would prove to be too much competition for the smaller retailers that have long been the backbone of Granada Hills. “It’s competing against our small and middle-sized businesses,” said Jim Summers, president of the Granada Hills South Neighborhood Council. “Traditionally, Granada Hills is made up of small and middle businesses and has a small town feeling.” Wal-Mart, in several high profile decisions, has backed away from opening stores in some neighborhoods where it has drawn fierce opposition, often for what many in these communities charged was an inability of small retailers to compete against it. But it’s unusual for such concerns to be lobbed against department store retailers, who have traditionally coexisted peacefully with independent and smaller chain stores. In that sense, the opposition facing Kohl’s may portend a new level of confrontation by neighbors who want to keep their neighborhood centers from drawing customers from a larger region. “The biggest objection is the site has never been a regional shopping center with a department store,” said Brad Smith, Granada Hills South NC director and member of the group’s planning and land use committee. “It’s always been a neighborhood center. The concern is if a Kohl’s, which is a regional store, comes in, then it’s very much a change in the character of the center and it’s a question of what else would follow.” While the community would like to have a Kohl’s, there are other locations in the Northwest Valley that would be better suited to such a store, said Smith, noting that the Granada Village location is not adjacent to a freeway exit. “The closest freeway ramps are Reseda and Balboa on the 118 and Devonshire on the 405,” he said. “They’re neighborhood streets. One of the things that has people scratching their heads is why would Kohl’s pick this location. There are much better locations close by.” Kohl’s, meanwhile, is demurring on the whole issue, perhaps cognizant of some of the difficulties retailers like Wal-Mart have faced. Through spokesman Kelli Ramey, the retailer said that it has not “yet announced any plans” for a store in the community of Granada Hills. “We have an ongoing real estate assessment process. At any given time, we are reviewing sites in communities nationwide.” Regency does not need new entitlements to proceed with the project, but it does need several variances, which the city would have to approve. The company has asked for a modification to a rule put into place when there was a movie theater at the center that requires more parking spaces than normally needed for a retail store. It has also asked for an extension of the hours of operation in hopes of attracting a restaurant. “Nice restaurants need to operate beyond 10 p.m. or 11 p.m.,” Legaspi said. “So the application is asking that we extend the operating hours.” He is hopeful that the center will get its variances by the late summer and the newly remodeled shopping center can open in the fall of 2008.
