Most of Quaked-Battered Laurel Plaza Mall to Be Demolished : North Hollywood: Only Robinsons-May will be spared. The news comes as a blow to many of the shopping center’s 33 merchants.

Nearly all of the earthquake-battered Laurel Plaza shopping mall in North Hollywood will be demolished, the shopping center’s attorney said Monday, putting an end to hopes that the 26-year-old mall owned by Forest City Enterprises would be refurbished.

“It is the intention of Forest City to have the portions of the mall other than May Company-Robinsons torn down,” said Tom Leanse, attorney for the local subsidiary of the Cleveland-based company.

“My clients have no present intention of building an expanded shopping center at that location.”

The news comes as a blow to many of the mall’s 33 merchants, including the Ice Chalet skating rink, which had reopened Oct. 20.

“We’ve probably got 1,000 people who will picket and fight this tooth and nail,” said Mike Robertson, manager of the rink that opened in 1968. Customers started calling over the weekend, he said, worried about Ice Chalet’s fate.

“We’ve had very little damage and that’s what is frustrating to us,” he said. Only about 200 to 300 ceiling tiles fell onto the ice and were cleaned up, he said.

The rink reopened, he said, with improvements such as an expanded boutique and a new snack bar.

But the popularity of the skating rink is not reason enough to refurbish the mall, according to Leanse.

“The leases for the other tenants expire on January 31,” he said, “and those tenants are not satisfied with the volume of traffic they are receiving at their present location.”

Except for the Robinsons-May department store and the skating rink, an art shop and a travel agency are the only businesses that have reopened at the mall since the Jan. 17 quake.

The possibility remains that Forest City will eventually build a new mall on the site. For several years before the earthquake it had sought city permits and other rights to expand and modernize the mall. The Los Angeles City Council was expected to make a final decision on the plans, which included space for three department stores and 5,400 parking spaces, sometime this year.

Leanse said that if the city does approve all the permits, the developer may choose to use those entitlements to create a new mall with new tenants.

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The relationship between many of the mall’s pre-earthquake merchants and the management company has been strained over the last several months.

Leanse said that few merchants responded to requests that they meet with company officials individually to discuss the situation. But Joel Greenberg, the owner of a Laurel Plaza photography studio that has since moved to Eagle Rock, said the tenants strived for months following the earthquake to get the attention of mall management.

“Many tenants, myself included, made efforts to discuss lease renewals with Forest City’s leasing department back in May and June,” said Greenberg. “Why weren’t they communicating with us five months ago?”

Some tenants said they were not surprised at the mall management’s decision.

“It wasn’t unexpected,” said Vicky Goldstein, manager of Claire’s Boutique, who has been unable to get into her store since the temblor. “We kind of figured it would happen after nine months of being closed.”

Goldstein said she is worried about getting her merchandise out before the mall is leveled, but Leanse said tenants have had the option to retrieve their merchandise for months, as long as they sign an agreement relieving the mall of liability from the risks of entering the structure.

At the Ice Chalet, Robertson was urging his steady customers to somehow persuade the management company to let the rink continue in operation. When his customers ask about the fate of the rink, he tells them: “We’re planning on being here permanently.”

Times staff writer Patrice Apodaca contributed to this article.