GLENDALE : Parking Key to Fashion Center Redevelopment

A dying Glendale outdoor mall may be brought back to life with a multiscreen theater, a gourmet supermarket, a major electronics retailer and even a modern video and music store.

But the mall’s rejuvenation may depend on how soon the city can rebuild a municipal parking structure next door, which crumbled in the Northridge earthquake.

The new owners of the Glendale Fashion Center want to proceed with a redevelopment plan conceived by the mall’s previous owners, who lost the property in bankruptcy court earlier this year.

Still, there is concern that several businesses that were interested in the new Centrium shopping center before the Jan. 17 quake will begin looking elsewhere if the project doesn’t get off the ground soon.

“We are very anxious to expedite this project and get the Fashion Center up and running as fast as we can, and we realize the importance of that parking structure in terms of keeping potential tenants,” Glendale Assistant City Manager Bob McFall said.

Built in the mid-1960s, the center once was a thriving retail spot, with a two-level Robinson’s department store and about two dozen specialty stores. Today, there is a Sportmart store flanked by a candy shop, a coffee shop, Clothestime and a few others, but many stores are vacant.

A full-scale rebuilding of the mall--estimated to cost about $20 million--was scheduled to begin this year. It included a Pavilions market, eight-screen cinema, a reconfiguration of the parking lot and the addition of new stores. The Glendale City Council approved the project in 1992 and extended the mall’s lease on the city-owned garage next door for another 30 years.

Until recently, the mall was owned by a Minneapolis-based investment group. But when the parking structure pancaked, the group was forced to forfeit the property to Balcor Financial, an Illinois subsidiary of American Express Corp. that held the second trust deed on the property.

The delay has been a boon of sorts for one mall tenant. A popular Western-style nightclub called In Cahoots was scheduled to be one of the first buildings razed when reconstruction of the mall began.

Greg Kahwajian, a consultant to Balcor, said the new owners now hope to have the mall finished and open by Christmas, 1995. He said interest in the center is strong, and among the retailers that have inquired about the mall are the Good Guys, Tower Records, Barnes & Noble books and Blockbuster Music.

He said the construction delay has actually “opened up new possibilities” for different stores to lease space in the new mall.

“This center right now probably generates less than $100,000 in sales tax revenue per year,” Kahwajian said. “Under this renovation, we’re going to boost that up to about $700,000 per year. You can buy a few police officers and firetrucks with that.”

Kahwajian said the design of the shopping center might change slightly from what the previous owners envisioned. A final design won’t be selected until the city decides on the size of the rebuilt parking structure at the corner of Isabel Street and Wilson Avenue. City officials said they are not sure when construction on the garage will begin, although they are confident the garage will be ready for the mall’s scheduled opening. A firm has been hired to create designs for the structure that would provide more spaces and make it more compatible with the mall, yet occupy the same amount of space as the old structure.