Tenants Say Mall Plays Waiting Game : Quake: Reopening has been delayed. Laurel Plaza managers say they may consider building a new site first.

Six months after Laurel Plaza was damaged by the Northridge earthquake, merchants are complaining that the mall’s managers are using costly repairs as an excuse to stay closed while they wait for approval to raze the structure and replace it with a $150-million shopping center.

Many merchants say they are fearful that delays in reopening will put them out of business.

Officials with Forest City Enterprises Inc. say a combination of delays in cleaning up earthquake damage and faster-than-expected clearance of plans for a new mall have prompted the company to consider keeping the mall closed until a new facility is built, even though the Los Angeles City Council has yet to approve final plans for the 26-year-old mall.

Forest City officials have wanted to raze the one-level mall since 1986 and replace it with a three-story, 1-million-square-foot shopping complex with three new department stores and 5,400 parking spaces.

“We feel that spending a lot of money on (repairing) a mall that may not be around so long is not economical,” said one Forest City official who asked not to be identified. The mall is owned by F.C. Laurel Inc. of Cleveland.

But Joel Greenberg, owner of Real Faces Photography and a five-year mall tenant, accused the mall’s owners of delaying tactics that could result in some merchants losing their livelihoods.

“Our businesses have been held hostage,” Greenberg said. “All the time they’ve told us that they are going to reopen. The idea that they would not reopen is a surprise to us.”

Greenberg took out a $100,000 SBA loan on the understanding that he would be able to enter the mall and repair his shattered business. But aside from entering the store for 15 minutes a day after the earthquake, he has not spent any time there.

Anthony Tapanes, owner of Hot Dog Heaven, is concerned that he will lose the business if the old mall never reopens. “I feel terrible,” said Tapanes, who has been in the mall 23 years. “It’s the only business I have.”

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About 300 employees of the mall are also awaiting news of reopening. As of Tuesday, only three merchants have reopened since the quake--all of whom are outside the inner mall.

Robinsons May, which is structurally separated from the building, was reopened within two weeks of the temblor. A travel agency and comic book shop were also reopened in March, but Sandy Orton of Wide World Tours says business is down 40% without mall traffic.

“It’s been very damaging to business,” Orton said. “We’ve been left out in the cold.”

Everett Shine, vice president of development for Forest City, said the fate of the 33-store mall is by no means sealed.

“We may not reopen in its current format,” Shine said. “There are so many indefinites here. Hopefully, the final decision will be made within the next 60 days.”

Some merchants are charging that those 60 days are just enough time for the developer to learn if the City Council approves its plans for the $150-million mall. City officials say the City Council is expected to vote on the project by the end of the summer.

The new facility, which would preserve the Robinsons May Department store, would create an estimated 2,400 new jobs, according to Shine.

To make room for the new mall, the developer had agreed to purchase the private Laurel Hall School on Radford Avenue for $8 million and relocate it across the street.

The project has been dogged by controversy from surrounding residential groups. Such groups opposed the original Environmental Impact Report and complained at public hearings that the new mall and relocated school would increase noise, crime and traffic problems on adjoining streets. The mall sits at the corner of Laurel Canyon Boulevard and Oxnard Street.

But despite the opposition, Forest City’s plan has rapidly headed toward final approval in the days since the Northridge temblor.

In March, the city Board of Zoning Appeals approved the move of Laurel Hall School, with the condition that the entire mall plan be approved. Two months later, the city Planning Commission gave a go-ahead for a revised plan that whittled a proposed 10-level office building down to six stories, closed one of the mall exits after 9 p.m. and added security cameras and increased patrols.

City officials say the proposal will appear before the City Council’s Planning and Land Use Management Committee within the next few weeks, and if approved, will move on to the City Council by the end of summer.

“We see the light at the end of the tunnel,” the unnamed Forest City official said of the six-year battle to gain city approval.

Many tenants, however, feel left in the dark about their future with the mall.

According to memos from mall General Manager Brian Pearson to tenants, the mall sustained “substantial structural damage” as a result of the Jan. 17 temblor and was red-tagged. In a letter dated Feb. 10, Pearson assured tenants that they would be able to reopen to the public on April 15.

But on March 24, Pearson sent out another letter that said the building also received asbestos contamination. The April 15 date passed without reopening, and some tenants were told that the structure received additional damage from aftershocks. But as early as April 26, tenants were told they could begin repairs in mid-June. A subsequent memo projected a grand opening in August.

Mid-June passed without any word from mall management, according to tenants. Then on June 24, the building was green-tagged by the city Department of Building and Safety. Certain areas were restricted to hard-hat use, but the general public could gain access to some other areas, said principal inspector Bob Kline. Four days later, Pearson sent another memo to mall tenants stating that the future of the mall should be decided in the next 60 days.

Tenants, including Greenberg, wonder where they would go for the two years it is expected to take to build the new mall. And they believe that repairs have proceeded too slowly.

“You get these long periods when nothing is done, and then a little bit, and then nothing,” said one tenant, who asked not to be identified.

One of the key criticisms has been delays in asbestos cleanup. Greenberg charges that the cleanup has only affected four stores. But officials with CST Environmental, the company subcontracted to clean out the mall’s commons and several stores, said the cleanup has proceeded normally.

“There is no procrastination that we have felt,” said Sage Khara, president of CST. “The commons has been cleaned, but I don’t know how safe it is to enter each store.”

Shine said the temblor “disturbed” asbestos in the structure, leading to a “hazard” that officials are still contending with.

As a result, Shine said merchants have had to sign liability waivers to enter their stores. Many, like Greenberg, have refused to sign the waivers, feeling it would jeopardize their legal position.

“There are still some hazards in there,” Shine said. “There is some merchandise that has been contaminated. We just don’t want merchants coming and getting some health risk. The asbestos has to be contained. Or removed.”

Shine also said that the company is “sympathetic” to the feelings of the tenants, but that “we don’t want to make a decision to reopen or not reopen that we may regret six months or a year later.”

Stanley Levy owns two shoe stores that were damaged in quake-wracked Laurel Plaza and the Northridge Fashion Center. But he says the attitudes toward tenants are very different between managers at both centers.

“My store in Northridge was much more damaged than the store in Laurel Plaza,” he said. But “the management in Northridge makes you feel like part of a team. They’ve been very open and honest about what’s going on. In Laurel Plaza, there’s no team effort that I can see.”

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Many mall patrons feel the same. Patricia Kobashigawa of North Hollywood sent a petition with nearly 100 signatures to Forest City officials to seek information on the reopening of the mall and its skating rink, which her 11-year-old daughter used regularly before the temblor.

Officials at Ice Capades Chalet say they are willing to open and have even done their own asbestos cleanup, but that the mall has not given them permission. The ice rink is not in the plans for the revamped mall.

“We’ve heard five different times for when it will be reopening,” Kobashigawa said. “It’s very discouraging. There’s a lot of people who miss the rink. A lot of us parents practically live in the mall.”

But some tenants are tired of waiting for an answer and are seeking an attorney to handle matters. According to one, the attorney may investigate whether Forest City violated its lease by not informing tenants of their decision to not reopen within 90 days.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs does not plan to take sides.

“I’m going to check with the city attorney’s office to see if we have any jurisdiction to resolve this problem,” said Tom Henry, Wachs’ planing deputy. “But it seems like a tenant-landlord issue. We hope that neither side is doing anything to try to influence the pending approval of the new mall.”

As far as one tenant is concerned, Forest City has already taken advantage of the earthquake to advance its plans for the new mall.

“For the merchants, skaters and community around the mall, the earthquake was a tragedy,” the tenant said. “Forest City is trying to turn the quake into an opportunity.”