Shopping for Shoppers : Galleria to Turn Things Inside Out in Major Renovation

Despite national notoriety as a home away from home for the mythic Valley Girl, the Sherman Oaks Galleria faces much of the same competition and pressure that has left malls around the country in the doldrums.

So it surprises few in the retailing and development industry that the 15-year-old mall that leaped to fame with Frank Zappa’s 1982 song “Valley Girl” plans to undergo a major renovation intended to make it more attractive, more accessible and, most important, more profitable.

The mall once synonymous with San Fernando Valley consumer culture is expected to submit plans to Los Angeles city officials today to add 13 movie screens--for a total of 18--and 27,000 square feet of new restaurants in an effort to lure shoppers back to the 90-store mall.

Two-thirds of an adjacent office building at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards would be torn down to create an open-air plaza, which would be open to the street to make access easier for pedestrians. Restaurants with patio seating and stores would open onto the plaza.

Existing shops and offices would be replaced by movie theaters and new restaurants. In total, office space at the complex would be cut by a third and the size of the indoor area of the mall would drop by 7% from its existing 1 million square feet.

Construction would begin in 1997 or 1998.

“Our overall goal is to take a project that has been crippled by its configuration and redevelop it in order to position it for the future,” said Joy DeBacker, the mall’s general manager.

DeBacker said the mall has not been doing well financially, either in terms of its sales per square feet or its ability to retain tenants “appropriate for the community.” The mall has been losing money for about the last three years, she said, although she would not say how much.

The Galleria is not alone, retail industry analysts said Tuesday. Regional malls across the country are finding themselves caught in a change in the retailing industry as warehouse clubs such as Price Club and discount stores like Wal-Mart siphon away business.

At the same time, the specialty boutiques that once lined the promenades linking mall department stores are more and more setting up shop on hip outdoor streets like Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade or Pasadena’s Old Town.

Department stores themselves, once a mall’s name-brand draws, are merging right and left, often leaving mall owners with the choice of filling empty anchors with down-market stores like Montgomery Ward and Target or finding new uses, like cinema multiplexes. In the case of the Galleria, the merger of Robinson’s and the May Co. left it with the same store operating at both ends of the mall.

Within that environment, malls are competing for tenants and amenities to appeal to the fickle tastes of consumers who flit between trendy spots like hummingbirds between flowers.

“This is probably the most competitive era in the 40-year history of regional malls,” said Mark Schoifet, spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers in New York. “They are facing competition not only from other regional malls, but from formats that did not even exist 40 years ago: outlets, super-stores, warehouses, catalogues and electronic shopping.”

In the San Fernando Valley, that competition has been particularly fierce since the Northridge earthquake. With many malls damaged or destroyed, all have undergone major renovations, echoing a nationwide trend in which remodeling projects outnumber new construction 2 to 1. The result: most are like new, making differences between them that much more difficult to spot.

Schoifet predicted that the malls that will succeed in the next decade will be those that effectively mingle retail and entertainment uses to create places where even non-shoppers want to linger.

“The advantage a mall has is the sociological aspect of shopping,” he said. “You have the ability to have fun at the mall. You bring the kids and shop at The Disney Store and check out The Footlocker, have lunch at the food court and maybe take in a movie. You can spend a few hours at the mall and describe it as a fun experience. I don’t think a lot of people would describe going to a warehouse club and taking a carton off the shelf as a fun experience.”

Ironically, though, malls are also facing competition from the very place they once threatened: Main Street. Places such as Old Town and Third Street Promenade, with coffeehouses and pool halls, are the gathering spots for young people in the 1990s, much as malls were in the 1980s.

Architect and urban planner Woodie Tescher, who helped engineer the resurgence of Third Street, said malls are trying to emulate that urban feel by connecting again to the streets that surround them. The Galleria, for instance, is demolishing most of its garden office building along Sepulveda Boulevard to create a public plaza and easier access from the sidewalk.

The Galleria’s plans have won praise. “It’s going to send a great message that this is a project that thinks very highly of Sherman Oaks,” said Barry Wegman, president of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce.

“They are putting a lot of money into Sherman Oaks, and they wouldn’t do it if they didn’t think Sherman Oaks is worthwhile.”

Some neighbors, however, are concerned that the Galleria’s shift toward entertainment will turn it into another Universal CityWalk, the popular Universal City attraction that lures thousands of young people every night. Indeed, with the addition of 13 movie theaters, the Galleria would boast as many screens as CityWalk.

“Some people are already raising questions, ‘Did you sell us out with all these theaters?’ ” said Gerald Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino, describing the concerns of some who questioned whether local community leaders were not tough enough in their negotiations over the project with mall representatives.

The mall’s owners--Prudential Insurance Co. of America and Dai-Ichi Life (USA) Inc.--originally wanted to build four more theaters and a high-tech entertainment center possibly featuring virtual reality displays.

Those plans were abandoned after neighbors objected, fearing more traffic. Tescher said, however, that the virtual reality center might have been just the thing to distinguish the mall from its competitors.

The key, he said, is flexibility. What’s hip today will be tomorrow’s joke and malls that succeed must create places that can accommodate the changing tastes of consumers.

“Whether it’s movie theaters or restaurants or coffeehouses or virtual reality,” Tescher said, “people love to socialize ultimately.”

Curtiss is a Times staff writer and Hwangbo a special correspondent.