Feast and Famine in Mini-Malls : Quake Haunts Many; Others Enjoy a Boom

There’s an easy way to tell how the small businesses along one block in Northridge are faring six months after the Jan. 17 earthquake ravaged the area. Just look at the shopkeepers’ faces.

Laura D’Angelo is the owner of the Kids at Heart gift shop in the Northridge Garden Center strip mall on Reseda Boulevard, just north of the infamous Northridge Meadows apartments where 16 people died. But the usually upbeat D’Angelo--who has done everything from hosting art fairs to adding trendy items to her carefully honed line of gifts--is showing signs of stress.

“I’m knocking myself out trying to survive,” said D’Angelo, whose sales are still 20% off her previous normal levels. “I’m in a burnout period.”

At a strip mall down the street, dry cleaner owner Gianni Fontana di Trevi looks grim. In the last few months, his daily gross receipts have averaged just $100 a day, not enough to cover his expenses. Fontana di Trevi has not applied for a Small Business Administration loan because he sees no way to make repayment.

“I’m thinking I’ll stay another month or two to see what happens,” he said. In the meantime, his wife’s salary from an outside job pays the bills.

But at Coco’s Restaurant & Bakery, next to Kids at Heart, general manager Nancy Hazelzet flashes a somewhat embarrassed smile as she says that business is booming, with sales up $1,000 to $2,000 a week over last year. Many regular customers have returned, she said, along with construction workers, geologists and architects working on earthquake repairs in the area. “This has become a gathering place,” Hazelzet said.

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For these small business owners in three strip malls about a mile from the epicenter, the six-month mark after the earthquake holds widely diverse meanings.

To some, it commemorates their will to endure as their sales slowly rebound; for others, it’s a glaring reminder of how arduous their recovery has been, making them wonder how much longer they can hold on when sales, for some, are still down by half. Yet others find themselves in the surprising position of seeing more business than before the quake.

The businesses suffering the most tend to be those that rely on clientele from the immediate neighborhood. Roya Saberzadeh, owner of Rochie’s Greek Row, which specializes in clothing and memorabilia for Cal State Northridge students, is struggling to stay afloat as sales are off by 50%. Not only is enrollment down at the quake-damaged university, she said, but many students have moved away while apartment houses are rebuilt.

Saberzadeh is still waiting for word on her SBA loan application, so she borrows money from her father to get by. Staring down into a glass cabinet, she said quietly, “I’m going to owe him into the next lifetime.”

Jackie Jones, owner of the Jones Coffee Co. boutique, just received word that her SBA loan application has been approved. She doesn’t know how much she’ll get, but she hopes it will go a long way toward replenishing the $64,000 she spent from her savings to replace broken porcelain plates, glasses and coffee-grinding equipment.

It’s a gamble for Jones, whose sales are also off 50%. Her clientele consists mostly of area homeowners, many of whom are just now starting to receive insurance money and begin repairs on their homes. Jones is betting that her customers will be settled back into their houses and ready to buy dishes and decorative items during the Christmas season.

Dentist Alexander Bondar and Intrigue hair salon owner Walter Zipusch, tenants of Northridge Garden Center, were denied SBA loans.

Zipusch says he was turned down because the SBA believed he couldn’t repay the money, since his business is off 70%. Much of the neighborhood’s damaged or destroyed housing hasn’t been rebuilt, depriving him of his customer base.

Bondar has the same problem. After a failed attempt to sell his practice, he says he pays his bills from savings and spends his time calling former patients. “They moved to a different area,” he said. “They say they’re scared of this area.”

Zipusch says the only way he can survive is if his $2,700-a-month rent is drastically reduced.

Phoenix Home Life Mutual Insurance Co. said structural repairs at the mall have been completed and that it will begin charging tenants rent this month for the first time since the quake. But rents will not be lowered, spokeswoman Jo-Anne Leventhal said.

The Hartford, Conn.-based insurer, which was the lender to the mall’s former owner, assumed ownership in March.

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Bill Matthews, who manages the other two strip malls on the block, has reduced the rent for many of his tenants, despite paying an extra $900 a month in interest for loans he took out to cover repairs and lost income. Matthews worries about securing a new mortgage when $2 million in mortgage loans on the properties comes due in December. Roger Olson, chairman of Dwyer-Curlett Inc., the Los Angeles mortgage banking firm that represents the lenders on Matthews’ strip malls, said the lenders have “every incentive to work things out. They don’t want to foreclose.”