Pillars of the Community : Leading the Way in Northridge Mall’s Recovery, Sears and Broadway Report Improved Sales

For local residents, the Northridge Fashion Center shopping mall has stood as a glaring symbol of the January earthquake. Now, eleven months later, two of the shopping mall’s anchor tenants have reopened just in time for the holiday season, and to serve as a milestone in the gradual rebirth of the community.

So far, shoppers have had little trouble finding their way back to the Northridge mall’s Sears, Roebuck & Co. and The Broadway department stores, which reopened last month after extensive repairs and remodeling. Managers of the two stores are reporting sales increases over this time last year and are hoping that the fancy new facades and upgraded merchandise mixes--changes that were already planned--will be an extra lure for customers.

Before the January temblor, the Northridge Fashion Center was one of Los Angeles’ most successful shopping malls. But the 24-year-old mall a half-mile from the epicenter suffered such severe damage that the rest of the 210 center stores are not expected to reopen until at least March.

On a recent weekday, Sears was busy with holiday shoppers, many of whom said that they’d been so busy with their own earthquake repairs that they had put off shopping until now. Others said they had traveled to malls in Woodland Hills, Glendale and Thousand Oaks and were now pleased to have their old shopping mall--a small part of it anyway--back in business.

“It’s beautiful,” said Marise Moore as she strolled through Sears. Perhaps, but her husband, Jack, added that it’s “still the same old Sears.” The couple were shopping for Christmas gifts, as well as light switches and other items for the quake repairs they’d only recently begun at their Granada Hills home.

“We missed Sears,” said Jack Moore. “It’s a hangout, with all the tools.”

Jay Nolasco of Northridge said the store’s reopening was timely because he needed replacement parts for his Sears washing machine and refrigerator. “It’s really nice to be back to normal.”

Sears spent $8 million rebuilding the Northridge store. It now has a modern, cream-colored exterior with pillars by the entrance. Inside, stockrooms were reduced drastically in size to make way for expanded apparel, cosmetics, shoe and electronics departments. The shopping area has grown to three floors from two, and aisles have been widened. The store’s general manager Ed Tiritilli calls the new design “shopper friendly,” and has turned the store into a model for new design and merchandising concepts that are being implemented throughout the nationwide chain.

The Northridge store, now one of the largest in the Sears chain, has also beefed up its staff to about 400 workers, 70 more than before the quake. But the biggest change is the expansion in the clothing sections, which reflect Sears’ strategy to get away from being just the place shoppers go to buy power drills and washing machines. Sales at the store have shown double-digit gains over this time last year, Tiritilli said.

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Joyce and Kim Dials, a mother and daughter from Valencia who came to the Northridge Sears to find a table as a Christmas gift for Joyce’s husband, said they liked the wider aisles and spread-out merchandise. “You can get in and out without pushing,” said Joyce. “And your kids, you can find them in the racks.”

Over at the Broadway, customers toting bright red holiday bags whisked through the store. The Broadway’s parent company, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, also used its rebuilt Northridge store as a showcase for its more upscale look, with a sleek facade of white bricks and aqua-colored trim.

Main aisles are now shaped in large ovals that lap the store, while high-tech ceiling lights and a large skylight on the third floor give a feeling of openness. Guest stations that provide everything from an automatic teller machine to a bridal registry are on each level. A touch-screen directory shows the locations of various products, departments and restrooms. A children’s play area features computers, toys, drawing boards and an animatronic talking redwood tree. The remodeled Broadway store also eliminated furniture and electronics departments to make room for more fashions and accessories.

Judith Rudnick of Reseda, who has done little shopping since the earthquake, said she was so happy to have the local Broadway back that she showed up for the Nov. 4 reopening, only to return the next day with her husband. On subsequent visits she took relatives.

Bill Giltner traveled from Bakersfield to see the new Broadway, and waited with his 14-month-old granddaughter while his wife shopped for gifts. “She just deposited me here,” he said with a laugh, adding that he was grateful that the new play area amused his granddaughter enough to keep her from running in the aisles.

“I’ve been shopping here for 20 some-odd years,” said Dick White of Granada Hills, who wandered Broadway while his wife shopped for her own Christmas present. “It’s better than it’s ever been.”

Retailing analysts said the remodeled stores in Northridge would serve as showcases for the chains. Broadway “put everything into that store so it would be cutting edge,” said Edward F. Johnson, director of the New York investment research firm Johnson Redbook Service. “They’ve been forced to redo. Now they’ll use these as tests.”

But some industry experts warned against placing too much importance on the initial customer response. Though both stores report sales increases, Richard Giss, a retail consultant with accounting firm Deloitte & Touche in Los Angeles, noted that “a year ago it was still a really soft retailing environment in Southern California. So that’s not a strong period to compare it to.”

Giss also said it might be difficult for the stores to sustain customer traffic until the rest of the Northridge mall comes back. “To have two anchors reopen without the specialty stores, that’s still a tough environment to operate in.”

And amid all the holiday glow about having their neighborhood mall partly back in operation, a few customer complaints surfaced.

Esther Lee of Northridge said she was glad the Broadway was open again, but because the only other store, Sears, was on the opposite side of the mall and the corridors of the mall remain closed, she had to drive around the block and park again to get to Sears. “It’s just an inconvenience,” she said.

Jean McMurdo of North Hills said she was lost in the redesigned Broadway. And she still has to drive to Glendale to buy her favorite coffee because the coffee concession in the Northridge mall is out of commission. Another shopper, who didn’t want her name used, said her recent trip to Broadway was her first to any department store since the January earthquake. She confessed to being “a little nervous” that despite the repairs another earthquake would do just as much damage.

Store officials admit that earthquake jitters could linger. Two mall parking garages that caved in during the quake will not be rebuilt until February and March. One garage was the scene of one of the most searing images from the earthquake, when a janitor had to be rescued after being trapped under tons of fallen concrete. Even though the new garages will be sturdier, Sears’ Tiritilli acknowledged that consumers might require some convincing about their safety.

Although the earthquake is still fresh in the minds of local residents, Tiritilli maintained that “we still have a great market. We believe we’re going to do extremely well for the next 20 years.”