Plan for Regional Mall Abandoned by Its Developer
A developer has dropped plans to open a regional shopping mall in the Santa Clarita Valley, saying the area could not support both his project and another mall already planned by Newhall Land & Farming Co. in Valencia.
“It wasn’t by choice,” Carl Nelson, vice president of Santa Fe Development Co., said Friday of the company’s decision to abandon its mall proposal. He said the company also found that it simply could not compete with Newhall Land, the largest developer in the fast-growing Santa Clarita Valley.
Santa Fe now intends to build a 100-acre shopping complex with discount stores such as Mervyn’s, Price Club and Home Club, Nelson said. The site is located in Canyon Country, east of the Antelope Valley Freeway and Golden Valley Road. The company also plans an 18-hole golf course and at least 1,000 residential units in an adjoining development.
Santa Fe announced plans for a regional mall last December, setting the stage for a bidding war with Newhall Land, which is trying to lure upscale department stores to its $180-million mall, planned for 80 acres near McBean Parkway and Valencia Boulevard.
The bidding war never materialized. Many retailers had either committed themselves to Newhall Land or were reluctant to talk business with Santa Fe because another mall already was in the works, Nelson said. Among mall builders there is “an unwritten code that they don’t pirate tenants away” once another mall is in progress, he said.
May Co. has already signed up for the Newhall Land project, and Newhall is negotiating with J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and Sears Roebuck and Co. The first phase of the Newhall mall, set to open in the spring of 1992, will include the May Co., a movie theater, restaurants and other stores, said Marlee Lauffer, a Newhall Land spokeswoman.
There is no scheduled opening for the second phase which, Newhall Land officials hope, will include upscale department stores. The company has already approached Nordstrom, Robinson’s and Bullock’s, Lauffer said. “We’re not in the negotiating stage, but we are talking to them,” she said.
