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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

‘Lifestyle’ Malls Evolve, Emerge Through Region

The regional model for an outdoor lifestyle center may be The Grove in the Fairfax District, developed by Caruso Affiliated. The success of that high-end project’s mix of restaurants and luxury retail amid leafy pathways and fountains has created the impetus to replicate the model around the region. Significantly, Caruso is replicating the model in Glendale at the Americana at Brand development, due to open in mid-April. “As great as The Grove is, this will be much stronger,” the developer’s namesake owner Rick Caruso said. Plazas and tree-lined walkways are included to entice shoppers who can linger at the project’s two-acre park. The outdoor mall is a complex of 75 shops occupying 475,000 sq. ft. of retail space, 90 percent of which was leased three months before it’s due to open. The site will also have 238 apartments, 100 condominiums and 3,500 parking spaces. In addition to the showcase retailers already signed up, there’s a Pacific Theaters 18-plex cinema and the center will have some of the usual suspects, ubiquitous vendors like Barnes & Noble, Pinkberry, Jamba Juice, Urban Outfitters, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Cheesecake Factory, the restaurant whose presence at Americana lawsuits were filed over. Last November, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury supported Caruso Affiliated’s assertion that Glendale Galleria owners, General Growth Properties, engaged in “fraud, malice and oppression” in trying to intimidate the Cheesecake Factory into not signing a lease with its rival next door. Chicago-based General owns 200 malls across the country and the suit alleged that the Galleria’s owner threatened the restaurant chain with delaying or scuttling deals in other locations the real estate company owns. Caruso Affiliated won about $90 million in compensatory and punitive damages. At the time, owner Rick Caruso said the money was being put back into the Americana development, and was not a windfall. “It delayed us a couple of years. It increased our costs, and they have to pay the price,” Caruso said recently. General Growth may have been the first to drop a lot of money over the location, but shoppers will soon follow, albeit in lesser denominations, the developer hopes. Americana has attracted the top tier of luxury goods retailers: Kate Spade in its first L.A.-area store, the high-end Sur La Table kitchen products store, Barneys New York, J.Crew spinoff Crewcuts; hip Swedish apparel retailer H & M; and Anthropologie, known for its fashion forward goods. Also signed up is L.A.-based Planet Funk clothier and its youth-oriented side brand, Play; there’ll be a BCBG Max Azria; Armani Exchange, and an Aveda salon. Puma will sell its shoes and athletic wear. Westfield Topanga Australia-based mall developer Westfield isn’t going to let itself be outdone. They have put $350 million into upgrading the Westfield Topanga mall; Neiman Marcus will put its first L.A.-area store into the West Valley project, a counterpoint to the new Target that opened last year. Neiman Marcus and other luxury retailers are expected to open their doors in the fall. Westfield plans a $700 million mixed-use lifestyle-type mall they’ve dubbed The Village at Westfield Topanga on 31 acres of property south of the Topanga mall and north of their Promenade mall which will consist of 438,500 square feet of retail space and 75,000 square feet of restaurant space amid 1,000 trees. The design calls for 40 percent open space between buildings constructed to “green” standards. The project will also have a hotel and office space. Snyder Project In North Hollywood, developer J.S. Snyder is set to build a “hybrid lifestyle” center, a 750,000 sq. ft. open air mall on 17 acres. Macy’s will anchor the project with an 180,000 sq. ft. store and be situated at the southwest corner of Laurel Canyon and Victory Boulevards, moving a block north from its current Laurel Plaza location. The project will also feature a 14-plex stadium-style seating movie theater amid electronics and apparel retailers. Cliff Goldstein, a Snyder senior partner, said “It’s a unique site that comes along once every few decades.” The location is amid an established business district with easy freeway access and adjacent to an old-style mall that will be repurposed into a luxury residential project. “It will be an anchor for the East Valley,” he said. The project represents the firm’s eight-year involvement and groundbreaking could begin in January 2009. “We are hoping to clear the entitlements by June with the final draft environmental impact report released within 30 days,” Goldstein said recently. Snyder is also proceeding with the final phase of its NoHo Commons development, 180,000 sq. ft. of office space and 78,000 of ground floor retail and a seven-screen Laemmle movie theater. The site will feature a rehabilitated historic Phil’s Diner railroad dining car.

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