Issue: Revival of Downtown Shopping Districts
Several Southeast Los Angeles County cities are grappling with deteriorating downtowns and budget shortfalls. Do cities benefit more economically by reviving their downtown shopping districts or by supporting malls in outlying areas?
Toby Mileski, Real estate broker, Downey
A downtown would be more profitable and more attractive than a mall, provided that there was some type of housing development in the downtown area, for example, townhome development or senior housing. In such a downtown, you would have people who would walk to the stores and restaurants instead of driving cars. Downey’s downtown is very stagnant. It’s kind of at a standstill. There’s space down there for lease. It needs something to bring the people there. Condominiums in the downtown would bring property tax revenue, plus you would have a group of residents who are down there who are going to spend their money there. It goes on to result in less traffic and less pollution. The downtown does not have an advertising budget like a merchant’s association in a mall. Without an advertising budget, you can’t stay in business without a major traffic flow. But if you had quite a few residents living in those areas, other people would come to visit and shop.
Howard Chambers, City administrator, Lakewood
If anything, our mall is our downtown. We benefit primarily because under the laws of the state, a city gets a local return of sales tax revenue. When you have a regional shopping mall, you have an enormous amount of sales money that comes back to the community to fund police, fire, libraries, planning. I think a regional shopping center provides a number of benefits to a city besides economics. Obviously, an advantage of the suburban mall is that most of them have lots and lots of free parking. That, in downtown areas, just does not exist. The city also has only a single owner to deal with. You don’t have to worry about a whole variety of owners, that in many cases may be absentee landlords. You have an opportunity to do some comprehensive planning and problem-solving. The city and the Lakewood Center Mall just completed a project on the mall’s exterior. If you have a downtown block area that’s got 30 different owners with 50 different ideas, you may not have any ability without a fistfight to have an agreement.
Lane Langford, President, Whittier Uptown Assn.
Downtown Whittier is the heart of our community. If the heart of your community dies, so does your history. Then your community blends in and becomes just like every other community. A downtown area is public and is a conglomeration of absentee landlords, some mom-and-pop stores and people with specialty stores. And so, what you have is a very different blend. It’s a shame more cities don’t realize what they have. It’s a gold mine, especially if it’s historical. I see mall after mall after mall. Downtowns offer a different approach, and that’s refreshing in a society where everything seems to be homogeneous. But I don’t think a city necessarily has to choose. Both downtown areas and malls have strengths which benefit the community as a whole. Santa Barbara put a mall right in the middle of its downtown. Competition sometimes makes us sharper.
Skip Keyzers, Senior vice president, The MaceRich Co.
Malls generate big sales because of their size and the types of business that they do with department stores. The sales per foot are much bigger than they are in any other shopping environment. More sales develop into more sales tax revenues for the cities. Malls are also incubators for a lot of small businesses. The Lakewood Center Mall was the first suburban mall in Southern California. A lot of businesses that were mom-and-pop stores were started at Lakewood Center and then grew from this space to be nationally known. The MaceRich Co., which owns 19 malls including Lakewood Center Mall, is very active in every community where we have a mall. For example, in Lakewood we are a major contributor to just about every charity. We have people who serve on the Chamber of Commerce. We sponsor health fairs. The advantage we have over a strip center or a downtown is that we can organize. In a downtown, how do you get all those disparate groups together?
