Robinson’s Exit Casts Doubt Over Towncenter Mall

A key department store’s withdrawal two weeks ago from Burbank’s planned $158-million Towncenter shopping mall has caused some Burbank city officials to worry that the whole project may fall through, and some retailers to re-evaluate the chance of the mall’s success if it is built.

J. W. Robinson, one of four anchor stores, withdrew from the project. Construction, which was to begin Oct. 27, has been delayed for at least 60 days while executives of the three other anchor stores, J. C. Penney, The Broadway and Nordstrom, evaluate the impact of Robinson’s decision.

Meanwhile, the city is anxiously awaiting an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission that could force Robinson’s back into the mall. At the city’s request, the FTC is studying whether St. Louis-based May Co., which recently proposed merging with New York-based Associated Dry Goods, the parent company of Robinson’s, is hampering competition in Southern California by withdrawing from the project. May Co. has a store at nearby Laurel Plaza in North Hollywood.

150 Stores

But although Burbank officials and the project’s developer, Ernest Hahn Inc., still maintain that the 150-store Towncenter will be a huge success, others are not so sure that the mall could fulfill Burbank’s hopes.

Some officials familiar with department store planning say the low residential density around the proposed site and the relatively low income of nearby residents would not support a mall the magnitude of Towncenter.

Robinson’s expressed an interest in Towncenter in the mid-1970s, about five years after it was first proposed. But by early this year, the idea apparently held less allure.

A former Robinson’s executive who had been instrumental in negotiating with Hahn officials said last week that locating a Robinson’s in the mall would probably not be a good decision because of competition from Robinson’s stores in Pasadena and Panorama City.

Had Reconsidered Earlier

The former chairman of Robinson’s, Mike Gould, said that, because of delays in construction and a change in design of the center, officials of Associated Dry Goods had reconsidered the decision to locate at Towncenter even before May Co. removed Robinson’s.

“We just didn’t want a store in that center, and we were hoping it was something that would go away,” said Gould, who resigned in March and now heads Giorgio in Beverly Hills. “It just didn’t make sense, volumewise. What is the need in Burbank? . . . It was very difficult to justify,” he said.

Competing malls near Towncenter would be Laurel Plaza, Glendale Galleria, Sherman Oaks Galleria, Pasadena Center and Panorama City Center.

Gould said executives of Associated began to fear a Towncenter Robinson’s would suffer the same lack of business that has plagued the Robinson’s that opened last year at Horton Plaza--also developed by Hahn--in downtown San Diego. That store is not living up to executives’ projections, Gould said.

Hahn Co. officials acknowledged that Robinson’s and The Broadway, another anchor store in Horton Plaza, were not as successful as they had hoped.

But Towncenter still has its supporters.

Scott MacDonald, vice president of development for Hahn, said the likelihood of the proposed mall’s succeeding is excellent. He said the anchor stores individually had conducted demographic surveys of the area and concluded that the site could work.

MacDonald said Towncenter, on a 29-acre site near the Golden State Freeway, could be convenient to more than 100,000 households, with a total household income of $3.5 billion, between Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley. According to a consultant for Hahn, the average income in the market area is $30,000 per household, MacDonald said, calling it “a fairly good number.”

“The typical regional shopping mall uses convenience as its primary orientation. The Golden State Freeway is a big plus,” he said. “Malls near freeways are bigger draws than malls on arterial streets.”

San Fernando Valley commercial real estate agents differed on the probable success of Towncenter.

Prediction Reversed

Seth Dudley, a vice president of Studley Inc., said he had felt during the 1970s, when Towncenter was proposed by city officials as a redevelopment project, that the mall was doomed. “But I’ve been watching its progress, and I think the time is right for a regional mall now,” he said.

“Burbank could definitely pick up the overflow from the Glendale Galleria, which has just gotten too big and is impossible to get in and out of,” Dudley said. “It would attract the blue-collar community and more affluent folks from Laurel Canyon and the Hollywood Hills.”

The success of three restaurants nearby and a 10-screen movie house to be completed soon will also help, he said.

But Tony Pann, vice president of Sherman Oaks-based Beitler & Associates, said the scope of Towncenter is too large for Burbank.

“The location is very close to the Verdugo Mountains, and there is not sufficient residential density on the east side, where the mountains are, to justify that kind of center,” Pann said.

He said the center would be more successful with retailers who offer lower prices, such as Mervyn’s or Marshall’s.

Larry Kosmont, who guided the Towncenter project for several years as Burbank Community Development director and who now serves the city as a private consultant on the project, said Towncenter “makes sense because it’s a great fill-in marketplace.”

In an interview last week, Kosmont said: “A fill-in area is characterized by a high population density in a large metropolitan-type area, which is served indirectly by a number of regional shopping centers but not directly by its own center. It would work.”

The city’s own studies, Kosmont said, show that the center would attract, besides the 82,000 people who live in Burbank, 75,000 other people who work in Burbank. He called its location, near the Golden State and Ventura freeways, a positive factor and said Towncenter could also draw from Burbank Airport, surrounding hotels and hospitals.

He said that, since Burbank families tend to own their homes and live in them a long time, many now have low house payments and thus more discretionary income to spend on shopping.

Takes Note of Consequences

Kosmont has thought about the consequences to the city if Towncenter is not built.

“There would be a long-term sales-tax leakage from the city,” he said. “It would be one revenue source that the city would not capitalize on.”

Although other retail businesses could be put on the site, “We really need this shopping center,” he said.

Kosmont said he encountered the same kind of skepticism now surfacing about Towncenter when he worked as assistant to the Santa Monica city manager during the mid- to late 1970s and helped develop Santa Monica Place shopping mall a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

“There was concern about demographics there,” he said, adding:

“They thought that half of their demographics were fish, but I convinced them that they could draw from Malibu, West Los Angeles, Brentwood, all over. Now that mall is a success.”