Robinson’s May Be Leaving Fashion Center
Robinson’s department store may soon pull out of Glendale, and the Fashion Center shopping mall near the Civic Center will be substantially remodeled to include a supermarket, new retail stores and a multiscreen theater complex, city officials and center owners said this week.
One wing of the aging outdoor shopping mall at Glendale and Wilson avenues, which houses the Excess nightclub, ClothesTime and three other retail shops, will be demolished for a parking lot, officials said. The Security Bank building at the corner will remain.
“We want to showcase the redeveloped store to the rear and provide a larger parking area,” said Lee B. Hoffman, a partner in the center.
Although declining to discuss details, Hoffman said Fashion Center owners for years have been considering ways to upgrade and modernize the Robinson’s mall. He said free-standing department stores such as Robinson’s “are dinosaurs that are all going to gang up and go to the malls where they can coexist with one another.”
Hoffman said owners plan to convert the ground floor of the three-story, 151,000-square-foot Robinson’s store into a supermarket. The second floor would be renovated for retail shops and the third floor used for a movie theater “with at least 10 screens.”
Several retail stores and the once-popular Churchill’s Restaurant in the 288,000-square-foot mall have been vacant for months. Retail sales have stagnated at about $35 million a year for the last five years, according to city records.
Hoffman said owners of the 25-year-old mall filed for bankruptcy in December after a lender, Balcor Pension Investors IV, raised interest rates to 18% and attempted to foreclose on a $6.3-million loan. “We had had numerous disputes with them which led to our filing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” Hoffman said.
He said owners are not ready to disclose full plans for the mall at 211 N. Glendale Ave., built in 1966 before the Glendale Galleria, the city’s first redevelopment project. However, Marlene Roth, a consultant for center owners, said preliminary plans for redevelopment were informally presented on an individual basis to City Council members about three months ago.
Proposed changes at the Fashion Center were publicly revealed Tuesday when the council agreed to sublease a city-owned, multilevel parking garage at Robinson’s to center owners. The city in 1965 provided tax-exempt bonds to finance construction of the garage for Robinson’s, which was then owned by Associated Dry Goods. The bonds have since been paid and the city owns the garage, city Finance Director Brian Butler said.
Robinson’s was sold in 1988 to May Department Stores Co. of St. Louis. The council Tuesday agreed to transfer the lease from Associated Dry Goods to the Fashion Center, allowing owners to obtain financing for the redevelopment project, officials said.
Despite approving the lease transfer, several council members said Tuesday that they are not happy with plans presented to them by Fashion Center owners. “I do not think there should be a major supermarket there,” said Ginger Bremberg, who predicted that market delivery trucks using a subterranean delivery entrance off of Wilson Avenue would conflict with traffic using the Civic Center parking garage and Police Department driveways across the street.
Councilman Larry Zarian also voiced concerns about the renovation plans and asked that proposals be brought to the council for review. Normally, changes in the center would only require approval by the city Planning Department, Planning Commission and Design Review Board. However, City Manager David Ramsay said that in view of council members’ questions, the matter will be brought before the council.
Roth said renovation plans for the Fashion Center will be brought before the city’s advisory Design Review Board today.
Informed of the announcement, Jim Abrams, vice president of communications for May Co., this week denied that the Robinson’s store in Glendale will be closed. “We have no agreement with Mr. Hoffman and we plan to continue operating there,” he said.
However, Hoffman countered that other officials in the department store chain, whom he declined to name, have agreed to give up their lease on the three-story building, which does not expire until 1999, and “will be allowed to leave before August, 1993.”
Roth told council members Tuesday that “Robinson’s is going to vacate” the Glendale store. “Its pretty much a done deal.” Roth said her conclusion was drawn from information from Hoffman and Bankruptcy Court records.
May Co. last month signed an agreement with the Redevelopment Agency to build a new anchor store in the Galleria to replace the bankrupt Buffum’s store at Central Avenue and Broadway. May Co. officials in the agreement promised that they would not build a new Robinson’s within five miles of the Galleria if the Fashion Center store is closed.
