Fashion Center May Be Razed to Build New Mall : Business: Property owner hopes to break ground on $35-million retail project within six months.

Construction of a $35-million shopping center, the first major retail mall to be developed outside the city’s downtown area in more than 30 years, could be under way before the year’s end, officials said Monday.

Only a few businesses remain open in the aging Glendale Fashion Center at Glendale Avenue and California Street, which is expected to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

The property’s owner, Illinois-based Balcor Financial, hopes to settle on a final design for its new mall and break ground within the next six months.

“The businesses that are still there are all on month-to-month leases now, and they’re being moved out in anticipation of some major activity,” said Greg Kahwajian, a consultant to the developer.

Within 90 days, Kahwajian said, the mall is expected to be closed, although the popular In Cahoots country music nightclub may be allowed to remain several months longer until demolition work begins.

The 1960s-era Fashion Center was under different ownership when reconstruction plans, including conversion of the former Robinson’s department store into a gourmet supermarket with a multiplex cinema on the top floor, were approved by the City Council in 1992.

But when the previous owner lost the property through bankruptcy, Balcor inherited the approved development plans. Then the Northridge earthquake destroyed a parking garage on the property that was owned by the city and leased to the mall, so the designers started over from scratch.

“Since the earthquake knocked down the parking garage for them, that opened up the entire block,” said Assistant City Manager Robert McFall. “They have been looking at a number of different design schemes that allow for a different clientele than other retail developments in Glendale have in the past.

“The look of the project is probably going to be more modern, and it will allow for the larger, box-type retailers.”

Current plans call for an all-new mall consisting of a multistory building containing retail shops and movie theaters at Glendale Avenue and California Street, and a supermarket at the opposite end of the block at Wilson Avenue and Isabel Street. In between would be a 2 1/2-story parking garage that would encompass much of the block.

Although no leases can be signed until the project’s design is finalized, officials said that in addition to the market and cinemas, there will probably be a bookstore, an electronics outlet, a women’s clothing store and a home furnishings shop.

Kahwajian said the center is expected to have 300,000 square feet of retail space. The parking garage, which is being rebuilt with Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, could account for up to $10 million of the project’s construction costs.

McFall said the city and the developer hope the mall center will be open by the 1996 holiday shopping season.

Within the next three months, Balcor is expected to go before the city’s Transportation and Parking Commission and the Design Review Board to begin seeking construction approvals.