Retirement Fund Will Sell, Not Redo, Anaheim Plaza

The owner of the Anaheim Plaza mall has decided to sell the center rather than spend millions to renovate it, a spokeswoman said Friday.

The California State Teachers Retirement System pension fund, which owns the center, made the decision to sell the mall this week after receiving several unsolicited offers from developers interested in buying it, said Charlotte Ellis, vice president of marketing for the Lehndorff Group in Dallas, the property manager for the mall.

The reasons for the flurry of inquiries from developers about the 34-year-old mall are not clear. The result, however, Ellis said, is that the pension fund plans to hire a Wall Street investment firm to actively market the 827,000-square-foot center.

Anaheim Plaza has for some time suffered from sagging sales and a loss of tenants.

In 1986, the center reported the sharpest sales drop of any county mall; its taxable sales had slipped 5.6% to $84 million. In 1987--the last year for which numbers are available--sales dipped 1.2% to $83 million, ranking it No. 10 in sales among the county’s 13 major malls, according to the State Board of Equalization.

The mall suffered a serious blow last year when Robinson’s closed its store there. The building it occupied--now owned by the pension fund--is vacant.

Robinson’s departure left only the Broadway and Mervyn’s department stores as anchor tenants. The vacancy rate at the mall is now 31%, Ellis said.

Renovated in Early 1970s

Last December, in a move intended to boost sales, the pension fund approved a multimillion-dollar face-lift for the mall, last updated in the early 1970s. Elaborate plans called for new entrance facades and awnings, brighter lighting, new windows and floors, and outdoor seating. Long-range plans called for adding two department stores, a second retail level and possibly a hotel.

But spending the money to renovate, Ellis said, would have involved “a certain amount of risk--and it’s a greater risk than a pension fund ordinarily can take.”

Pension fund officials in Sacramento could not be reached Friday.