Renovation at Marketplace in Homestretch

The oldest mall in Ventura County is about to have a $60-million rebirth.

Scaffolding is coming down, wooden walkways are coming out and a bright neon sign is going up in preparation for the first of many grand openings planned at Janss Marketplace in Thousand Oaks this fall.

Mervyn’s will hold its opening ceremonies Oct. 12--about a year after construction began at the 35-year-old former Janss Mall.

A four-level, 1,350-space parking garage will open with the Mervyn’s store. Best Products will move into its expanded store in November. A new nine-screen Mann Theater is set to open in December. And the old, two-screen movie house will be torn down in January.

In the past year, buildings have been torn down, others renovated and still others built from the ground up. Overall, the mall increased in size from 480,000 square feet to 660,000 square feet. But there is still more to be done.

“We’re making a big push to get all the concrete paving done before the Mervyn’s opening,” said Bill Mendelsohn, general manager of Janss Marketplace. “You’ll be able to walk through the mall again.”

Although the heavy winter rains caused delays in the project and sparked concerns that most construction work would not be finished in time for Christmas, Mendelsohn said Tuesday that he was gratified that the openings are on schedule so far.

“During the rains, we were in the earth-moving process,” he said. “So every time it rained, they had to pump the water out, let the earth dry out for a day or two, and then start over again.”

Best Products moved to temporary quarters half the size of the old store in March and will open its renovated space Nov. 3. That building now has two stories and 70,000 square feet, twice the size of the original Best.

“It’s huge,” warehouse Manager Greg Gibson said. “We’ll be able to carry a full line of merchandise we didn’t have room for before.”

Although merchants have complained that business has fallen off since construction began, Gibson said Best customers have been faithful.

“It’s not as bad as we had thought it would be,” he said. “All our customers say it’s very hard to get in here, but they’ve made it.”

The new nine-screen theater should draw more people to the mall, but plans to tear down the old theater will keep construction crews at the site into the new year.

“It’s far enough away from the rest of the mall that it shouldn’t bother anybody,” Mendelsohn said.

Heavy construction work will also continue on Linens N’ Things, a housewares store set to open in April.

With the bulk of the work done, though, Mendelsohn said he is ready to invite the public to have a look at Janss Marketplace and its new face.

“We’re anxious for people to see it when it’s all done,” he said.

Mervyn’s Manager Christine Carpenter acknowledged that there is a lot of work and cleaning up to do before the grand opening, but she anticipates no problems.

“Most of the work will be complete by then,” she said. “I feel very confident that they’ll do their job.”