GLENDALE : Proposed Mall Is Generating Interest
Tower Records, Good Guys electronics, AMC Theaters and a variety of other new businesses could move into downtown Glendale as soon as next summer if a developer succeeds in building a major outdoor retail project that has been in the making for four years.
JMB/Urban Development of Century City also has recruited the Cheesecake Factory restaurant and several other as yet-unidentified retail businesses to move into Glendale Marketplace, an outdoor mall proposed for the two-block area between Brand Boulevard, Broadway and Harvard and Louise streets, city officials said Monday.
“There’s real strong interest in this project because it’s going to be different from what currently exists in Glendale,” said Kirk Pelser, a project manager with the Glendale Redevelopment Agency.
“Right now there we have street retailers along Brand Boulevard and major retailers in the Galleria, but there are no nationally known retailers on the street.”
Officials said the mall, which was originally envisioned as an extension of the Exchange shopping center but later was retooled to include larger retail stores, could be under construction by summer, in a best-case scenario.
The redevelopment agency has already hired consultants to design a 950-space parking garage and to prepare an environmental impact report on the mall, which will have up to 250,000 square feet of retail space with three anchor stores and a multiplex cinema.
Construction could be delayed a bit because JMB/Urban has yet to acquire any property in the designated area. The affected parcels are owned by about a dozen different parties, with whom the developer will have to negotiate individually, Pelser said.
“That part of the process has lagged behind somewhat,” he said, noting that JMB “started off by obtaining appraisals and trying to determine what the market values of the properties are, and now they’re in the process of trying to contact each of the owners.”
At its weekly meeting today at Glendale City Hall, the agency will consider granting the developer a 60-day extension of its Nov. 1 deadline to begin obtaining options on the properties.
The agency has the option to walk away from the deal if it feels the developer is not making progress on developing interest by retailers, financing the construction or acquiring property.
