Bernson Battles Northridge Mall on Site for Stores

Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson and Northridge Fashion Center owners stood their ground Wednesday in a dispute over where to build two department stores at the shopping mall.

Bernson stunned center officials Tuesday by introducing in the council a successful motion to place a one-year moratorium on building permits issued on or near the shopping center property.

The moratorium is aimed at blocking the mall’s owners from carrying out their plan for a major expansion, including stores for May Co. and Robinson’s.

The council unanimously approved the measure. City officials said the moratorium next goes to the Planning Commission and then returns to the council and the mayor for final approval.

Bernson, who represents the northwestern Valley, said he objects to the owners’ plan to put the two new department stores on the mall’s west side, contending that doing so would “seriously worsen congestion on Shirley Avenue,” which borders the mall on the west.

Shift Urged

He said the narrow street is already strained by heavy traffic.

He urged the mall to shift the expansion to the east side, bordered by Tampa Avenue; the south side, bordered by Nordhoff Street, or the north side, bordered by Plummer Street.

But mall manager Kenneth Oswald said putting the new stores and adjacent parking garages on the east side “just won’t work. We have studied the situation, and this is where the expansion will work.”

He said that, although Bernson’s staff had conveyed the councilman’s displeasure with the design, “we were very surprised and disappointed by the moratorium.”

Oswald also complained that the mall’s owners, U. K. Northridge Inc., had invested large sums in design and engineering work on the building plans.

Final Plans Submitted

He said that final plans were submitted to the city Building and Safety Department in December and that owners had planned to begin construction within three months.

“The city certainly knew what we were doing over the past year,” he said, “yet they let us continue without objection.”

The mall, opened in 1971, is considered by industry analysts to be one of the most successful in Southern California. Among its 145 stores are four departments stores: Sears, J. C. Penney, Bullock’s and The Broadway.

The expansion would increase the mall’s square footage by 400,000, to 1.5 million.

Oswald said he had no estimate of the cost of the expansion. He said completion had been scheduled for late 1987 or early 1988.

Bernson said the moratorium should give city planners time to complete a revision of the Chatsworth Community Plan, which includes the Fashion Center area and has been under way for two years.

He said the updated plan is expected to contain guidelines for alleviating traffic problems and to require more parking spaces for commercial and industrial developments.

Bernson said he extended the moratorium west and south of the shopping center “because those are areas in transition, and it seems that the city should have more control over what goes in there.”

As tentatively approved by the council, the moratorium area is bounded by Parthenia and Plummer streets and Corbin and Tampa avenues.

Bernson, who once owned a shop at the Northridge mall, said he waited to introduce the motion because the city attorney’s office had advised him to wait a year after ending his business ties to the establishment.

The councilman said that he owned The New Breed, a T-shirt and sportswear store, from 1972 until December, 1984, when he closed the store and sold his lease.