A Mall Divided : Parking War Blamed on Realty Giant

There was frustration coming and going Friday when Debbie Goldstein pulled into Woodland Hills’ oldest shopping center.

On arrival, she had to circle the lot until she found a place to park. On departure, she had to wait until a double-parked delivery van behind her pulled out of her way.

Patience and parking are both in short supply these days at the Corbin Village Shopping Center.

A former supermarket in the center has been converted into Woodland Hills’ first king-sized real estate office. Neighboring merchants claim that it is causing a king-sized parking problem.

The shopkeepers charge that 260 sales agents who work out of the Mike Glickman Realty office are clogging the center’s 586-space parking lot with their Mercedes-Benzes and Cadillacs.

Parking Disputes

They said the result has been frequent altercations over parking spaces between shoppers--and an ongoing dispute between the shopping center’s owners over what to do about the problem.

Glickman company officials deny that their agents are gobbling up parking spaces.

Although 260 bright pink desks are lined in neat rows in the 23,000-square-foot former Thriftimart building, “we never have more than 40 agents” in the office, except for Thursdays, said Michael Pennell, chief operations officer for the Glickman company. On Thursdays, the firm holds a morning sales meeting for its agents.

Merchants said they are feeling the pinch.

Pharmacist Gary Kalyn said he can trace a 14% drop in business since the Glickman office opened late last year.

“It’s awful, awful,” said Lisa Vela, manager of a nearby card and party supply store. “Nobody is going to park a mile away to walk to my store to buy a card. We’ve tried to be nice, but it hasn’t worked.”

Clothing store manager Kevin Schwartz said the realty agents take up spaces all day.

“You can see there’s no business in my store. That’s because there’s no parking for customers,” Schwartz said. “Glickman customers park for 5 hours while Glickman people take them around to show them houses.”

The worst days are Thursdays, Corbin Village merchants said.

“It’s a zoo,” said Helen Suarez, manager of an optometrist’s office. “Our patients come in here screaming.”

Rick Rittner spends his mornings shooing long-term parkers away from the front of his seafood store. “On Thursdays there are comments from everybody who walks in here,” he said.

Deli owner Ed Wynn now closes on Thursdays, instead of Mondays. “Because of their meetings, it was impossible for my customers to get here,” Wynn said.

Beauty supply store owner Kate Elliot said she loses about $300 in sales each Thursday. “Parking hasn’t been allocated properly,” she said. “The problem is the three landlords haven’t been able to get together on this.”

The owners have separate buildings in the 35-year-old shopping center but share the parking lot as part of a reciprocal-use agreement. They do not share opinions about the parking lot.

Jon Cohen of San Francisco owns the western portion of Corbin Village, including the building that houses Glickman’s huge office.

‘I don’t think it’s a problem,” Cohen said. “Everybody is making a lot of money at that center. They are complaining all the way to the bank, I believe.”

Ben Joseph of Westlake Village owns the middle portion of the center. He said it is imperative for the three owners to rewrite the 1950s-era parking agreement so parking can be controlled.

“There wouldn’t be a problem if they didn’t bring in the realty agents. These people are so damned nasty . . . they park any place so they don’t miss their meeting,” Joseph said.

Dean Cutler is co-owner of the eastern portion of the shopping center. He said he and his partners have offered to restripe their end of the lot and Joseph’s center portion to ease the crunch, but Joseph won’t give them permission to do so.

“We think we could add a lot of new spaces,” said Cutler, who is in the middle of a $3-million remodeling that includes construction of a 35-space underground lot. “We’re going to restripe our end and hopefully we’ll set an example, and it will catch on.”

Glickman’s Pennell said restriping of the whole lot could add another 180 spaces. He blamed some of the overcrowding on commuters who park in the lot and car-pool to work in Los Angeles.

Pennell attributed merchants’ unhappiness to the squabbling among Corbin Village’s owners. He said efforts by shopkeepers to post signs banning realty agents from parking in front of their stores has violated the center’s reciprocal parking agreement.

Instead of cursing his real estate salespeople, the merchants should be thanking them, Pennell said.

“The reality is this shopping center has higher sales now than before we moved in,” he said.