Mall Merchants Say Renewal Plans Are Already Proving Their Worth

A planned $6-million renovation of Santa Monica’s Third Street Mall has already boosted property values and attracted new investors to the downtown shopping area, according to the Third Street Property Owners Assn.

Ed Wenner, chairman of the association, said some properties have increased in value by 250% since 1984, when the city created the Third Street Development Corp. to oversee renewal of the declining mall.

The city’s plans to redesign and renovate the mall during the next two years have “attracted some new and upbeat tenants,” Wenner said.

“Thirty percent of property on the street is being redeveloped or improved,” he added.

Increased Value

Edward Flores, a broker with Commercial Industrial Associates, said a property on the 1300 block of the mall that he sold for $38 a square foot three years ago is now worth between $85 and $175 a square foot.

New tenants include Hennessey & Ingalls Art & Architecture Books and Teasers, a popular restaurant and nightspot, Flores said.

The conceptual design, approved last month by the City Council, calls for opening the pedestrian-only mall to automobiles during evening hours to create a sense of activity on the mall and to increase the visibility of its businesses, according to Peg Curran, director of the city’s Department of Community and Economic Development.

Built in the mid-1960s, the three-block outdoor mall with its outdated storefronts and mostly low-end merchandise is considered an eyesore by many--a failed attempt to combine the ambiance of a park with the convenience of a suburban shopping mall.

Curran said the mall, at 80 feet wide and 2,000 feet long, is too large to create the sense of liveliness and security that attracts pedestrians.

Limited automobile traffic could solve this problem, she said. Cars will not be allowed to park on the two, narrow lanes that will be built through the mall, and their access will be limited to times when foot traffic is low. “Our primary goal is to make (the mall) a wonderful pedestrian place,” she said.

Wenner said the concept will be successful.

“It’s going to give the area a whole new lift without losing the characteristics of a pedestrian area,” he said.

Limited automobile access is part of the effort to create a nighttime market for the mall, which is already heavily used at lunchtime, said council member Dennis Zane who has been pushing for the renovation since 1984.

Three movie complexes seating nearly 4,500 people and restaurants featuring outdoor dining will be the cornerstones of the nighttime entertainment-cultural market, he said.

“The outdoor dining creates a character on the mall,” said Thomas H. Carroll, executive director of the Third Street Development Corp. “And now, with the theaters, we’ll have dinner activity as well as lunch activity.”

Palm Trees

The redesign will feature palm and light shade trees and rows of light poles with banners hanging from them. Thirty-foot-wide sidewalks will flank the two-way car lane down the mall’s center.

In addition, Zane said about half of the tenants on the mall, located between Wilshire Boulevard and Broadway, have committed to renovating their stores and storefronts.

The redesign and renovation is expected to cost $6 million, with $5 million being paid for by mall property owners through a special assessment district and the balance being paid by the city. The redesign is being prepared by ROMA Design Group of San Francisco.

“The mall is really the heart of Santa Monica and the objective of this project is to make sure the heart of the city beats again,” he said.

The project is scheduled to be completed by the fall of 1989.