ANAHEIM : City Wants ‘Bolder’ Plan for Aging Mall

The city’s Redevelopment Agency has told the company that manages the troubled Anaheim Plaza to submit by mid-March a new plan for remodeling the shopping center and to include a proposal for adding an entertainment complex.

Redevelopment Director Elisa Stipkovich said Friday that the O’Connor Group, a New York firm that manages the mall for its owner, the State Teachers Retirement System, was told at a meeting that its previous proposal to tear the roof off the plaza and make it an open air marketplace is not “bold” enough and must be redone.

The plaza was placed in a redevelopment zone by the City Council a year ago, and the city is requiring the retirement system to remodel the mall, where 30 of the 71 stores are vacant.

“We talked with O’Connor about the community’s concerns and problems with the plan, and we told them that (the agency) would be willing to work with them on a redesign of the plaza that includes an entertainment (center),” she said.

She declined to define what was meant by an entertainment center or to give more than a few details about how the city wants the plaza remodeled.

O’Connor had not included a movie theater in its proposal, which it submitted in December, because it said no cinema chain was willing to operate it.

The group’s plan called for redesigning the 37-year-old plaza around its two current department stores, Mervyn’s and the Broadway, and a third unidentified store to replace Robinson’s, which left the plaza almost five years ago.

Stipkovich said Bruce Macleod, O’Connor’s executive vice president, is backing away from a proposal he unveiled to The Times Orange County Edition recently that called for possibly tearing down the plaza and replacing it with a mixed community of homes and retail outlets, such as Wal-Mart, on its 54 acres.

Macleod told The Times then that the plaza was no longer viable in its present form and that a major reconstruction or possibly demolition would be necessary. For the past several years, the plaza has been losing customers to the Brea Mall, MainPlace/Santa Ana, South Coast Plaza and other local malls.

But Stipkovich said that during a meeting with her last week, Macleod said the group has no plans to tear down the plaza. The city has said it is not likely to approve any plan that calls for the plaza’s demolition.

Stipkovich said that if the next plan does not meet approval, O’Connor will again be told to redo it.

Macleod did not return calls for comment Friday.

The retirement system’s eight-year ownership of the plaza has been severely criticized the past few years by members of the City Council and the community.