Baldwin Hills Mall Trying to Lure Tenants : Business: Joint developers of Crenshaw Plaza are negotiating to improve mall after an aggressive marketing campaign fizzles.

The city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and developer Alexander Haagen are negotiating a deal that could provide up to $5.5 million in improvements to the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza to persuade stores to locate there.

The agency and the Alexander Haagen Co., the joint developers of the 800,000-square-foot mall, opened negotiations on the plan this month after an aggressive effort to attract national stores to the mall proved difficult.

“The purpose of the tenant improvement program is to entice national and regional chain stores into the mall,” said Andrew Natker, a spokesman for Haagen. “We believe the program will bring in more shoppers down from the hills who are leaving the community to do their shopping.”

Natker said such incentives have become commonplace among operators of regional shopping centers. The plaza is seeking to attract stores carrying such goods as cards and gifts, women’s wear, sporting goods, and men’s shoes, he said.

The Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza, the first regional shopping center in the nation to be built in a predominantly black community, opened more than a year ago amid much celebration from the residents of the largely middle- and upper- middle-class communities of Baldwin Hills, View Park, Crenshaw and Leimert Park.

But today, despite an aggressive marketing campaign, only about half of the mall’s 100 stores are open for business. The plaza has a May Co., a Broadway and a Sears, but it has been unable to sign a fourth anchor tenant, as promised, and many of the smaller national chains are absent from its directory.

Under the tentative enticement plan, a retail chain signing a lease to put a store in the plaza would have many of its construction costs, or tenant improvements, paid for by the developers.

Up to $5.5 million would be borrowed by Haagen to cover the costs. The agency’s share of the debt, as much as $4.5 million, would be paid out of its share of the mall’s profits. Haagen would pick up the rest.

As part of the negotiations, the agency is also seeking an agreement with Haagen to set aside 15% of the money to help minority tenants locate in the mall. And to assure that more than one minority tenant gets help, the agency has asked that at least 15% of all tenants assisted under the program be minorities. “This is to make sure that we don’t end up with one well-endowed minority tenant,” a spokesman for the agency said.

The Haagen Co. and the agency are expected to reach an agreement sometime next month. The plan would have to be approved by the agency’s commissioners and the City Council.

“The goal is to get the agreement worked out and in operation so that stores will take advantage of it by the fall shopping season, when business is the heaviest,” said Donald Spivack, the agency’s project manager for the plaza.