Following Market Trends : Economy: Del Amo Fashion Center adds discount stores to keep pace with what shoppers want--more for their money. But some fear the addition of T.J. Maxx and Marshalls will drive away affluent customers.

During the 1980s, dozens of regional shopping centers popped up in Southern California, but none ever matched the king of the malls, Torrance’s Del Amo Fashion Center.

Just four years ago, it was not only the biggest in the Southland, it topped all others in the country: more than 3 million square feet of space and 350 stores. About $445 million annually in retail sales. So big it issued its own credit cards.

But the South Bay’s sluggish economy of the 1990s has taken its toll on the retail mecca, an L-shaped complex on 140 acres.

Large chunks of retail space in one wing have been vacant. Sales have been flat. And, adding insult to injury, Mall of America in Minnesota claimed its title as the country’s largest indoor shopping center (although Del Amo still comes out ahead if the amusement park at the Bloomington, Minn., mega-mall is excluded).

Now Del Amo is fighting back with renovated stores and some additions.

The biggest and most controversial move has been to lease the former Stor space to T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, two off-price (as they call themselves) apparel retailers that will be a stone’s throw from the more posh Bullocks, Broadway and Robinsons-May department stores that anchor the mall.

For customers, the changes could mean getting some of the same items they buy at department stores but at cheaper prices.

The additions of T.J. Maxx, which opened last month, and Marshalls, scheduled to open in December, signal a dramatic shift at Del Amo toward more value-oriented stores, a bright spot in retailing in the 1990s.

But mall merchants have mixed feelings about whether the new stores will be a blessing or a curse.

Some worry that the new neighbors will make their area “like a swap meet,” siphoning away potential customers from their more expensive wares.

Others, though, see the changes as key to drawing more browsers.

“Anyone that brings in any more traffic is going to help,” said Joe Ballestero, owner of Pin City, a sports card and memorabilia shop on the mall’s east end, where vacancies have been at their highest. “Right now, this is like a coffin.”

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The history of Del Amo is so confusing that mall operators don’t have a fix on the year it opened. Parts of the center date to 1959, but its current configuration is the result of the combination of two centers--Del Amo Center and Del Amo Fashion Square--that were linked by a wing over Carson Street in 1981. Since then, it has become a retail powerhouse in the South Bay, posting annual sales more than double that of its nearest competitor, the Galleria at South Bay in Redondo Beach.

Del Amo reported sales of $441 million in 1992, or $147 per square foot, according to the National Research Bureau in Chicago. That was down slightly from 1989, when sales were $445 million, or $148 per square foot.

Still, much of the development of retail space in the South Bay in the past few years has been in off-price centers such as Torrance Promenade and Oceangate Center in Hawthorne.

“The customer doesn’t quite look at malls like they used to,” said Jacquelin Fernandez, director of the retail and distribution services group at Deloitte & Touche, a Los Angeles accounting firm. “They think of the mall for their destination-type of shopping, not for the retail-shopping experience. They don’t have the money or the time to do that anymore.”

So Del Amo has changed.

James Jones, president of the mall’s owner, The Torrance Co., said that because Del Amo is so big it will make it easy to convert one wing into a discount section, although he would not elaborate on how to achieve that goal. He declined to be interviewed, instead responding through a spokeswoman to questions submitted by The Times.

The T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s wing now includes a hodgepodge of retailers ranging from mom-and-pop craft shops to portrait studios and anchor store Montgomery Ward.

Concentrating larger discount stores in one area and specialty stores in another is a trend among large malls, retail analysts say.

At the Mall of America, for instance, Marshalls and Nordstrom have enjoyed prosperous sales under one roof, but at opposite ends of the mall.

Del Amo is “kind of a bizarre mall,” said Fernandez. “Already, one side seems to cater to the upper-income customer and the other side, with Montgomery Ward, the middle- or lower-income. If they could focus on that, it could draw more people in.”

When T.J. Maxx relocated to the mall last month, it sent models walking the corridors to show off low-cost fashions. Lease rates a few years ago were too high for the retailer to afford the mall because it tries to keep its overhead low.

Its presence, said T.J. Maxx spokeswoman Dawn Griffin, makes “the competition stiffer. But it’s going to help the other stores. It’s healthy competition.”

Reaction among merchants in the T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s wing has been mixed. Some see the additions as a way to boost customers, while others are worried that they can’t lower their prices to compete with the discount stores.

Adding to the anxiety of some are rumors that a third off-price clothing store, Ross Co., will take the Woolworth space.

“There is more traffic, but it is not what we are looking for,” said the owner of a men’s store, who asked not to be identified. “How can I sell a $700 suit when they have all these off-price stores here? It will be a bad thing. It will be like a swap meet. I will have to move out.”

“It’s going to hurt,” said Tammy Tran, store manager at Windsor Fashions, which sells women’s apparel. “They carry a lot of our names, but at a lower price and from last season. But the lower prices bring in a different kind of customer.”

Other retailers say that the new mix of stores will be a help in increasing foot traffic.

When the Woolworth across from Pin City moved out about two years ago, Ballestero said his sales fell 40%. Problems worsened when nearby Stor shut its doors. That closed a shortcut shoppers used to get to the east wing.

Philip Sedgwick, manager of a nearby Radio Shack, said there hasn’t been a store to draw customers since Woolworth left.

“There’s nothing for people to look at at this end,” Sedgwick said.

A few doors down, Hanover Shoes has temporarily set up shop while its store near Bullocks is being renovated.

“We’re not even doing 15% of the business we were doing over there,” said Amir Jehangir, store manager of Hanover Shoes.

There also have been crime problems.

In March, the manager of an arcade on the east wing was shot to death, possibly by a robber hiding in the mall’s service hallway. The Torrance City Council agreed to deploy two more police officers to patrol the center, and the mall’s own security was beefed up.

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The hardest hit by the changes at Del Amo could be department stores, already struggling to stay afloat with the weight of heavy debt and the loss of business to large discount centers. T.J. Maxx and Marshalls have traditionally been located in many of these centers, rather than enclosed malls such as Del Amo.

“It really steps up the pressure on department stores to do more remodeling, have more visuals and adopt more themes,” said Mitch Ellner, retail industry partner at Kenneth Leventhal & Co., a consulting firm in Los Angeles. “It’s a sign of the times. It may cause more competition for the weaker of the department stores to survive.”

Nevertheless, he sees wisdom in Del Amo’s strategy.

The off-price stores “provide confidence to the shopper that they are getting good prices,” he said. “The mall will continue to attract specialty stores. But this is taking the market opportunity.”

Scott Edwards, owner of the Kitchen Emporium across from Marshalls, and other merchants believe that too.

“It was just a matter of time before they came in a mall like this,” Edwards said. “For the customer, things are tough these days. They got to make their buck go farther.”

The other day, Theresa Garcia was doing just that.

Standing outside T.J. Maxx, Garcia told of the dress she bought for $39 at the store, half of what it would have cost at a department store.

“I try to save, cut corners, in everything,” said Garcia, 52, a photographer. “You have to these days.”

But Garcia said that with a dearth of party dresses at T.J. Maxx, she still plans to shop at Windsor Fashions, a higher-priced women’s apparel store. Just not as often.

King of the Malls Del Amo Fashion Center in Torrance would still claim the title of the country’s largest indoor mall if only retail space were included. The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., with an indoor amusement park, opened last year and became the largest in the country. The top five, their location and gross leasable area:

1. Mall of America

Bloomington, Minn.

4,200,000 sq. ft.

2. Del Amo Fashion Center

Torrance

3,000,000 sq. ft.

3. South Coast Plaza

Costa Mesa

2,600,000 sq. ft.

4. Lakewood Center Mall

Lakewood

2,498,000 sq. ft.

5. Roosevelt Field Mall

Garden City, N.Y.

2,300,000 sq. ft.

Source: International Council of Shopping Centers

History of a Mall 1957: Sears, the Broadway and the Del Amo Estate Co. announce joint plans for $40-million shopping center with more than 50 stores and 6,000 parking spaces. The center is to be built on 85 acres of a Spanish crown land grant dating back to 1784.

1959: Del Amo Center opens.

1964: Bullock’s Fashion Square, another center just north of Del Amo Center, opens.

1969: Bullock’s Fashion Square announces plans to add 100 stores, including a Montgomery Ward and Orbach’s.

1971: Newly named Del Amo Fashion Square opens with more than 160 specialty shops and five department stores. Includes the South Bay’s first multiplex, the 4-screen United Artists Theatres. The mall features an hacienda motif, as well as crystal globe fixtures, skylights, flower beds, fountains and circular stairways.

1979: Del Amo Fashion Square and Del Amo Center announce plans to build $20-million addition to connect the two malls.

1981: Newly named Del Amo Fashion Center opens, with 355 stores in 3 million square feet, creating the nation’s largest indoor shopping center.

1983: Mall owners The Torrance Co. attempt to halt renovation of South Bay Center, two miles to the north in Redondo Beach. The company alleges that the center would create a traffic bottleneck on Hawthorne Boulevard that would prevent drivers from getting to Del Amo. A Superior Court judge rejects the claim, and the newly named South Bay Galleria opens two years later.

1985: Del Amo offers its own credit cards.

1992: Stor closes, shutting off shortcut from one end of mall to another.

1992: Mall of America opens in Bloomington, Minn., but Del Amo still claims title of largest mall in United States if only retail space is counted.

1993: Store manager is shot to death as he opens up arcade at mall’s east end. The arcade is closed for renovation and security is tightened.

1993: Mall adds Marshall’s and T.J. Maxx, two off-price apparel retailers.