Asbestos Abatement Is a Quake Side Effect at Northridge Mall : Cleanup: The temblor triggered an all-out effort to rid the center of the carcinogenic material--fallen or still in place.

A few hours after the Jan. 17 earthquake, John Graham, vice president of property management at MEPC American Properties Inc., which owns the Northridge Fashion Center mall, made an urgent phone call from his Dallas office.

“I’m willing to bet there’s asbestos in there . . . on the floors” in the mall, Graham told Lou Magnifico, construction manager at Professional Service Industries Inc., an asbestos abatement contractor in Walnut.

Magnifico hurried that day to the mall and took pictures of the heaps of fallen ceiling tiles and drywall. When Graham saw the photos, he spotted a telltale gray, fluffy-looking material amid the rubble and said, “Uh-oh.”

And so began a multimillion-dollar asbestos cleanup and abatement effort at the Northridge mall, which is about a mile from the epicenter and by far the most heavily damaged shopping center from the quake. Two other shopping malls, Topanga Plaza in Woodland Hills and Laurel Plaza in North Hollywood, have also undergone asbestos cleanups since the temblor, although nothing like the undertaking at the Northridge mall, where the plan is to remove every bit of the cancer-causing substance--even what was not dislodged by the quake.

“Asbestos is an emotional subject,” Graham acknowledged. Although asbestos is not considered to be a health hazard if it is properly maintained, “our corporate philosophy is just take it out.”

MEPC, a subsidiary of British real estate concern MEPC PLC, purchased the Northridge Fashion Center in December as part of a $302-million acquisition of American holdings. Now MEPC is hoping to turn its bad luck into opportunity. When the mall reopens in July--except for its six department stores, which will take longer to rebuild--MEPC hopes to publicize the center’s squeaky-clean condition.

Asbestos is present in more than half of all commercial and residential buildings 15 years old or older, authorities say, and in some newer buildings. Asbestos is resistant to heat and very durable, but in recent years it has been discovered that asbestos materials that are moved or broken may release microscopic fibers into the air. If inhaled, these fibers can cause lung disease and other cancers. The substance is considered to be inert, however, when left intact.

In any building containing asbestos, experts say, it is necessary to test the air to see how many particles might have shaken free. Air pumps with filtering devices are used in the testing. If a high level of airborne asbestos is found, cleaning up the site may include misting to weigh down floating particles, wet-wiping hard surfaces and using big vacuums with special filters to trap the tiny fibers. Workers doing the cleanup must don protective clothes that resemble space suits, which are used once and discarded.

Clothes and other porous items from the stores being rid of asbestos will also be bagged and sent to asbestos-disposal sites.

Things took an odd turn recently, when police investigated a report that 20 members of an asbestos cleanup crew had walked off with asbestos-contaminated new clothing from the Sears outlet at the Northridge mall. No one was arrested, since taking items headed for a toxic-waste dump apparently is not a crime.

Sears, which owns the store, was responsible for the asbestos cleanup and had hired a crew from CST Environmental in Anaheim. Sage Khara, CST’s president, said he was outraged by the “theft” of the clothes and fired those workers the same night. “It was a very devastating experience for us,” he said.

CST has also been doing emergency asbestos work for MEPC at most of the other Northridge mall stores. Graham said that CST has worked for his company five years, and has been reliable.

This week, CST and other companies will bid on a new asbestos cleanup contract at the Northridge mall. Meanwhile, security guards are charged with ensuring that nothing is taken from stores during the cleanup. “We made it clear to CST that heads will roll if it happens with us,” Graham said.

Asbestos shaken loose in the quake has been a bigger problem at shopping malls than at other large commercial structures in the Valley. Most of the office and industrial buildings with the worst quake damage were made of concrete slabs, without asbestos.

Also, many office buildings old enough to have contained asbestos--say, some of those along Ventura Boulevard, built in the 1960s and 1970s--had been rid of the substance before the quake. “There is not nearly as much asbestos in the Valley as there was five years ago,” said Seth Dudley, senior vice president at real estate brokerage Julien J. Studley Inc. in Los Angeles.

Nonetheless, asbestos abatement contractors have been busy since the quake. Asbestos cleanups have also been done at Cal State Northridge, a Kaiser Permanente medical building in Granada Hills and the County Courthouse in Van Nuys.

Northridge Fashion Center, Topanga Plaza and Laurel Plaza were built in the ‘60s and early ‘70s, when asbestos was commonly used for fireproofing and insulation.

The malls had done some asbestos abatement in the past, as tenants moved out, but a comprehensive asbestos-removal project would have meant closing the malls temporarily. Until the earthquake, there was no compelling reason to remove asbestos that was safely contained.

Still, Topanga Plaza and Laurel Plaza will have some asbestos remaining.

David Reed, director of facilities services at CenterMark Properties, owner of Topanga Plaza, said that over the years, asbestos had been removed from 75% of the mall and all common areas. About 16 shops were contaminated when the earthquake dislodged ceiling tiles, exposing sprayed-on asbestos behind them, he said.

The total Topanga Plaza asbestos cleanup and abatement is estimated to have cost less than $250,000. Some shops will still have asbestos, Reed said, but it will be properly maintained and the air in the stores will be monitored for particles.

At Laurel Plaza, some asbestos that had been sprayed in ceilings and walls was released by the quake and subsequent repair work. The asbestos cleanup will probably be completed this week, General Manager Brian Pearson said. When the mall reopens April 15, about 80% of the asbestos will have been removed.

“There is no reason for concern,” Pearson said. “We are following the laws.”

Scott Lange, hazardous materials coordinator at Los Angeles property management company Shuwa Management, said that leaving old asbestos in place is “absolutely safe, as long as there’s correct air monitoring.” And Dudley does not believe asbestos will detract from property values. “Even in high rise-office buildings with asbestos, I haven’t seen a significant effect on rental rates,” he said.

But Northridge Fashion Center owner MEPC is doing a full abatement anyway, at a cost expected to run to “seven figures,” according to MEPC President David Gruber. MEPC is expecting part of that expense to be covered by its earthquake insurance, although it is still negotiating with the insurer.

About 25 store sites and some common areas of the Northridge mall have asbestos that was sprayed onto the structural steel. The day after the earthquake, 100 workers began sweeping the mall corridors from one end to the other and bagging anything suspected of being hazardous.

The crews began monitoring the air in the mall and sealing off tenant spaces. On the thick plastic placed over the shops with asbestos, the word HOT was spray-painted in red. MEPC plans to clean 15 feet into stores that don’t have asbestos, in case fibers drifted into them. Merchandise with hard surfaces, such as jewelry, also is being cleaned.

MEPC expects to complete the removal project by May 1. Until then, floors are vacuumed each morning. Asbestos workers in contaminated areas wear respirators and the protective suits. They pass through mobile chambers where they remove the suits and bag them for disposal, then shower and change.