Damage Raises Questions on Malls' Seismic Safety : Disaster: Anchor stores, such as Northridge Bullock's, were hit hard. Engineers renew calls for retrofitting.

By LESLIE BERGER and RICHARD SIMON

Feb. 20, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Of all the destruction caused by the Jan. 17 earthquake, among the most striking failures was the collapsed Bullock’s store at the Northridge Fashion Center, where hundreds of shoppers might have been injured or killed if the temblor had struck during business hours.

Although that San Fernando Valley mall near the epicenter clearly fared the worst, interviews and city records show that other enclosed shopping centers suffered varying degrees of damage--from a collapsed roof and cracked concrete walls to loosened brick facades and fallen light fixtures. Many mall corridors were covered in shattered glass. In one, a water main dropped from the ceiling, crushing a sales kiosk.

A Times survey of a dozen shopping malls within the earthquake’s path, from the Valley to the Westside and the Crenshaw district, shows that at least 16 major department stores remain closed because of quake damage, as do all the shops inside the Northridge Fashion Center and Fashion Square Sherman Oaks.

Although city inspectors and private engineers are still trying to assess the quake’s effect on these centers of suburban life, they have observed that anchor stores, especially older ones, tended to suffer the heaviest damage. They also have found that in many instances non-structural elements such as mirrors and merchandise displays presented more of a threat to shoppers and employees than structural failures did.

Because the Northridge earthquake struck in the heart of a commercial center, experts say it affected malls like none before it, underscoring the potential for wide-scale casualties and the need for seismic upgrading. Of Southern California’s 105 major shopping centers, about half were built before building codes incorporated the knowledge gained from the 1971 Sylmar earthquake.

“If we were to take the same approach with airplanes, the public would quickly become outraged,” said structural engineer John Osteraas, who is helping to prepare a report for the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute of Oakland.

Helmut Krawinkler, director of the John A. Blume Earthquake Engineering Center at Stanford University, said all malls should be re-evaluated for seismic safety because tens of thousands of people pass through them each day. “We all know how lucky we were that (the quake) happened at 4:30 in the morning,” Krawinkler said.

Department stores seemed to take a harder hit than the malls themselves, according to city building officials and private engineers. Some speculated that the many partition walls of the malls’ smaller stores provided stiffness to their structures and helped absorb energy from the earthquake.

On the other hand, experts said, the tall ceilings and broad spaces of department stores seem to have left them more vulnerable to the earthquake’s shaking. They said large structures generally take longer to rebound from an earthquake’s forces than smaller ones, leaving more opportunity for damage as they resonate.

Several retail buildings--such as the Northridge Bullock’s and a partially collapsed sister store in Sherman Oaks--were made of reinforced concrete, a type of construction that the California Seismic Safety Commission has noted can snap under an earthquake’s forces.

Engineers examining retail outlets said they also have been struck by the volume of broken glass and poorly anchored architectural details such as brick and tile veneers, decorative mirrors and display cases, which could be lethal if they fall.

“We have not focused on that issue strongly enough,” said engineer Gregory Luth of Failure Analysis Associates.

Under current codes, skylights must be made of tempered or wired glass, which can cost more than twice as much as conventional glass. But in storefronts, only the glass in doorways or in display windows that come within 18 inches of the floor must be tempered.

The safety glass requirement was not fueled by seismic considerations so much as concern that someone could accidentally break the glass and get hurt, said Nick Delli Quadri, a senior structural engineer and spokesman for the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department.

Decorative brick and tile also came loose in the earthquake, posing a potential hazard.

At Topanga Plaza mall in Canoga Park and the nearby Promenade in Woodland Hills, the palatial, brick-covered entrances to a Nordstrom and Bullock’s are under repair and remain off limits to the public because of earthquake damage. An architect for Nordstrom said the facade had started to separate from the wall during the quake.

“My speech is always the same,” said structural engineer John Martin Jr. “The (greater) danger isn’t in the buildings, it’s in the architectural elements falling on you.”

Sometimes the efforts of structural engineers can be diminished by architects’ creative indulgences, some engineers said. Fancy entrances and atriums with user-friendly open space can weaken earthquake-resistant walls, said Filip Filippou, a UC Berkeley engineer contributing to a university review of the Northridge quake.

Malls also can be weakened by the cumulative effect of small remodeling projects in individual stores, said Drew A. Norman, a structural engineer whose clients include Century City Shopping Center & Marketplace. “Any particular space within the mall may have been remodeled a dozen times since it was originally built,” he said.

Experts said that by far the most troubling sight has been the Northridge Bullock’s, which opened in September, 1971, with the rest of the Northridge Fashion Center.

At the main entrance off Tampa Avenue, Bullock’s brown-brick geodesic facade slipped almost entirely to the ground, leaving a gaping hole in the exterior wall. The view inside showed the top two of three stories squashed together in a jumble of concrete, steel and glass.

“It was the type of collapse where no one survives,” said Martin, whose firm has been hired by the Northridge Fashion Center to analyze the damage.

A spokeswoman for Bullock’s parent, R.H. Macy & Co., said company officials are attributing the failure to the building’s proximity to the Northridge earthquake’s epicenter and to the fact that the 24-year-old building was designed to codes that were in force before the Sylmar quake. The store’s structural engineers are performing a more detailed analysis, she said, but she refused to disclose their names.

The architecture firm that designed the store, Welton Beckett & Associates of Santa Monica, is now Ellerbe Beckett of Santa Monica. Greg Nook, a senior vice president there, said he spoke to the firm’s former owner. “He had no reason to believe that it was designed inconsistent with the codes or built inconsistent with the drawings.

“It’s very difficult to say what the cause was,” Nook said of the collapse.

The top two stories of the building apparently collapsed because the ties between the floors and supporting columns were not strong enough, said several engineers who viewed the store.

“They didn’t have good connections,” said Ben Schmid, a structural engineer for 45 years and a past president of the Structural Engineers Assn. of Southern California.

The four-story Bullock’s at Fashion Square Sherman Oaks was also declared unsafe by city inspectors. The roof collapsed like a V onto the top floor, one city building official said. Like the Bullock’s in Northridge, it was designed by Welton Beckett & Associates. It opened in 1962.

Elsewhere at the 1.5-million-square-foot Northridge Fashion Center, the Broadway, two Robinsons-May stores, Sears and JC Penney remain closed.

Officials of some department stores refused to discuss the damage, and city building officials said their inspectors have been too busy to conduct more thorough follow-up inspections of the malls.

Within the mall, a preliminary review by Martin indicated that the shopping center “took a very severe beating” that distorted its steel frame, but that it came through the quake surprisingly well. The full extent of the structural damage has to be determined, Martin said.

About 60% of the mall’s storefront windows shattered, some ceiling tiles fell, and everything imaginable on shelves and in display cases fell over, said general manager Lloyd Miller. The four parking garages sustained such extensive damage that they have to be rebuilt.

The only other mall that remains entirely closed is the Fashion Square Sherman Oaks. Mall spokeswoman Sandy Turner said the 32-year-old shopping center suffered no structural damage and the city cleared it for occupancy. But Turner said the owners have been conducting a thorough review of the property for seismic and fire safety. To avoid reminding shoppers of the quake, the owners also want to remove all traces of damage before reopening, she said.

At the Fallbrook Mall in West Hills, heavy decorative mirrors fell from atop one-story columns, and a 12-inch sprinkler main crashed from the ceiling onto a kiosk and “disintegrated” it, according to general manager Eric Knudson. “It was like something right out of Hollywood studios,” Knudson said.

The Sherman Oaks Galleria’s steel structure held up well, a spokeswoman said, but in a recently remodeled wing, several brass and glass light fixtures plunged in one piece to the floor. The mall’s architects were investigating why the fixtures, measuring 10 or 12 feet long, broke loose, said mall marketing director Karalyn Lucci.

Topanga Plaza proved a testament to seismic upgrading.

Opened in 1964 as the first enclosed mall west of the Mississippi, the shopping center underwent a $45-million face lift two years ago that included extensive seismic work, according to marketing director Annette Bethers. The architects added a $4-million, steel and concrete frame to the original building that was designed to absorb the shock of an earthquake, transfer its forces back into the ground and hold its two stories together.

It worked, Bethers said. The mall suffered a few broken storefronts and cracked floor tiles and most of its stores quickly reopened.

“We feel smart and we feel more than smart, we feel lucky that we did our (seismic) work when we did it,” Bethers said.

Meanwhile, three of the plaza’s anchor stores that were built at the same time and of similar construction--the Broadway, Robinsons-May and Montgomery Ward--suffered varying degrees of structural damage and will remain closed for three to six months, Bethers said.

Even before the earthquake struck, Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson had advocated retrofitting older, “non-ductile” structures--those made of inflexible materials that do not move easily and could snap in a quake--such as the collapsed Northridge Bullock’s. Los Angeles has an estimated 400 to 1,000 non-ductile buildings constructed in the 1950s, ‘60s and early ‘70s, officials said.

“We have an opportunity to learn from things that have happened in this quake,” said Bernson, whose district includes the Northridge Fashion Center, where he once ran a T-shirt shop.

The state Seismic Safety Commission, which is collecting information on the Northridge quake, has yet to hear evidence specifically on malls or issue any recommendations. But Executive Director Tom Tobin agreed with Bernson and experts that older, high-occupancy buildings of reinforced concrete “should be evaluated and the owners should be responsible for doing what is necessary to prevent a collapse.”

Asked whether retrofitting should be required by law, Tobin replied: “I think eventually it has to be.”

Los Angeles developer Arthur Pearlman, state director for the International Council of Shopping Centers, said retrofitting should be done on a case by case basis, even for older buildings. “My personal opinion is that the buildings designed after the 1971 earthquake are all up to (current seismic) standards, and obviously more standards will come out after this quake,” Pearlman said.

Robert Tindall, one of the architects who renovated Topanga Plaza, said the $4-million seismic upgrade represented a modest part of the overall cost of the $45-million remodeling project. But Tindall, a senior partner at Callison Partnership in Seattle, said seismic upgrading often increases renovation costs as much as 30%.

“It’s going to be a tough decision developers will be facing,” he said. “Knowing what we know today, I’m not sure it makes sense not to include a seismic upgrade as part of your project. And I think the cities are going to require it.”

Damaged Malls

The dramatic collapse of a Bullock’s store in Northridge and other damage to malls has heightened awareness of seismic safety in shopping centers. A survey of a dozen major malls hit by the Jan. 17 earthquake found that, although some department stores suffered structural failures, most of the damage was cosmetic.

Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza

Address: 3650 W. Martin Luther King Blvd., Los Angeles

Garages: One underground parking garage, no damage, remained open. Other parking is open air.

Department stores: Robinson’s-May, closed. Sears and the Broadway are open.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included water damage, about 35% of storefronts broken, some loosened floor- and ceiling tiles. Open.

Stores: 90.

History: Opened in 1947 as an open-air shopping center. Enclosed in 1988.

Beverly Center

Address: 8500 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles

Garages: Open.

Department stores: Bullocks and the Broadway, both open.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included nine broken storefronts; some cracking and loosened panels to exterior stucco walls; water damage; bent escalator tracks, and a loosened, exterior fire wall that required reattaching. Open.

Stores: 160

History: Opened in 1982.

Century City Shopping Center & Marketplace

Address: 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Century City

Garages: One large, underground garage, open.

Department stores: Bullock’s and Broadway, open.

Mall: No structural damage. Fewer than 10 storefronts were broken and a few wall tiles cracked.

Stores: 140

History: Opened in 1964, expanded in 1986 to add restaurants and movie theaters with minor seismic upgrading to original structure.

Fallbrook Mall

Address: 6633 Fallbrook Ave., West Hills

Garages: None; open-air parking.

Department stores: Penny’s, Mervyn’s and Target are open. Sears remains closed.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included broken glass storefronts in half the stores; fallen decorative mirrors, and water damage, including a 12-inch main that collapsed from the ceiling. Open.

Number of stores: 85

Estimated damage: Not available.

History: Opened in 1964 as an open-air shopping center. Enclosed in 1986, when Mervyn’s and Target were added.

Fashion Square Sherman Oaks

Address: 14006 Riverside Drive, Sherman Oaks

Garages: All three parking areas--an open-air lot and two parking structures--remain closed with the rest of the shopping center. Only one will be rebuilt.

Department stores: Bullock’s and the Broadway, both closed.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included cracks and broken tiles on walls; about 30% of storefronts broken; shattered, tempered glass at escalator railings and in the elevator. Closed.

Number of stores: 140

History: Opened in 1962 as an open-air shopping center. Renovated in 1977 and 1990, when it was enclosed.

Glendale Galleria

Address: 2148 Glendale Galleria, Glendale

Garages: A three-level garage closed for quake-related repairs. A second garage, undamaged, has remained open.

Department stores: Nordstrom, the Broadway, Penny’s, Robinson’s-May, and Mervyn’s. All open.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included broken storefronts, water damage from loosened sprinklers, and cracks to ceilings and walls. Open.

Stores: 264

History: Opened in 1976. Expanded in 1983 with Nordstrom, Mervyn’s and 100 shops added. Robinson’s-May added in 1993.

Northridge Fashion Center

Address: 9301 Tampa Ave., Northridge

Garages: All four garages will be demolished.

Department stores: Bullock’s, the Broadway, Sears, two Robinson’s-May and Penny’s. All closed.

Mall: Remains closed. Extent of structural damage still being determined. Cosmetic damage included 60% of glass storefronts broken; dropped ceiling tiles; water damage from loosened sprinkler heads.

Number of stores: 210

Estimated damage: $25 million to replace the four parking structures. No estimate for mall.

History: Opened in 1971. Remodeled 1984, expanded in 1988-89, and remodeled again 1992.

The Promenade

Address: 6100 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Woodland Hills

Garages: None, open-air parking.

Department stores: Bullock’s, open. I Magnin, closed. Saks Fifth Avenue, closed.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included an estimated 75% of storefronts broken, cracked floor tiles, wall cracks, limited water damage. Open.

Stores: 50

History: Built in 1973. New roof structure with domed skylights added two years ago.

Santa Monica Place

Address: Fourth Street and Broadway

Garages: Two, both open.

Department stores: Robinson’s-May and the Broadway, both open.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included water damage, about 30% of storefronts broken, and some broken windows of top floor.

Stores: 160

Estimated damage: $3 million to $4 million in clean-up and repairs.

History: Opened in 1980. Renovated in 1990.

Sherman Oaks Galleria

Address: 15301 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks

Garages: A six-story garage adjacent to the mall suffered some damage, was repaired, and scheduled to reopen Friday. An underground public parking area and a four-level employees’ garage remained open.

Department stores: Two Robinson’s-May closed.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included a few broken storefronts; cracked marble tile, and fallen, overhead light fixtures. Open.

Stores: 85

History: Opened in 1980 and renovated last year.

Topanga Plaza

Address: 6600 Topanga Canyon Blvd., Canoga Park

Garages: None; open-air parking.

Department stores: Nordstrom, whose entrance facade was damaged, to reopen Feb. 26; Robinson’s-May, the Broadway and Montgomery Ward remain closed.

Mall: No structural damage. Damage included some broken storefronts and cracked marble floor tiles. Open.

Stores: 106

History: Opened in 1964. Renovated, including seismic upgrading, two years ago.

Westside Pavillion