Revolving door continues at Triangle Square

Lolita Harper

COSTA MESA -- The troubled Triangle Square continues to make changes

in management -- losing yet another general manager -- while concrete

changes are few and far between.

Tom Estes, the center’s general manager for three and a half years,

recently left the fledgling center to become a tennis pro, he said.

The 62-year-old wanted out of the shopping center management business,

he said.

“I managed shopping centers for 26 years and I always wanted to get

back into coaching and teaching [tennis],” Estes said. “I had the

opportunity and I took it.”

There were no hard feelings involved in his departure but Estes did

admit that the job had become frustrating. He was charged with the

challenging task of recruiting new tenants to lease the increasingly open

store fronts.

Existing management at Triangle Square was unavailable for comment

Friday.

On paper, Triangle Square has a recipe for success: big name anchors

-- such as Nike Town, GAP, Barnes & Noble and Virgin Megastore -- a

popular restaurant and nighttime hangout in the Yard House, great freeway

access and 192,000 square feet of leasable space.

In the past 10 years, Triangle Square has consistently suffered from a

failure to retain tenants and complaints of poor management. Even with a

change in management companies, the center still continues to have

problems filling empty retail space. Triangle Square has seven vacancies,

at the center’s last count, with Whole Foods -- which officially closed

its doors at the end of April -- leaving a gaping 4,200-square-foot hole

on the bottom level.

Tenants aren’t the only things that have been inconsistent at the

center. Administrative positions have been shuffled, changed and even

eliminated in recent years. In December, Triangle Center terminated the

contract of marketing director Corrie Abbs, who was the sixth marketing

director in four years.

With Abbs gone, the marketing responsibilities fell on Estes.

Planning Commissioner Bill Perkins, who has followed the changes at

Triangle Square with great interest and worked with previous managers on

possible strategies, said he was disappointed to see Estes go.

“I always thought Tom was the glue that held that center together,”

Perkins said.

Perkins said he can’t blame Estes for leaving. The continuous pressure

to find more and more tenants had to be frustrating, he said.

Estes insisted his motivation was simply one of wanting to pursue

other professional goals. It is much less stressful to be a part-time

tennis instructor, admitted Estes, who now coaches at a neighborhood

Irvine tennis club.