Council OKs Renovation Plan for Galleria

Braving continued opposition from some homeowners, City Councilman Mike Feuer on Tuesday led his colleagues in unanimously approving a proposed $30-million renovation of the foundering Sherman Oaks Galleria, forever immortalized in the 1982 Frank Zappa ditty “Valley Girl.”

The proposal--which adds eight liquor-serving restaurants and 13 movie screens, for a total of 18--is yet another symbol of the Valley’s earthquake recovery, Feuer said before the vote.

“This represents the most significant investment in the Valley that I know of since the Northridge earthquake,” he said. “Simply doing nothing [to the Galleria] is consigning the area to be blighted.”

Responding to new economic realities in which department stores are merging left and right and mega-discount stores are siphoning away profits, the 90-store mall, situated east of the San Diego Freeway at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards, took the route touted by many industry analysts. Galleria owners Prudential Insurance Co. of America and Dai-Ichi Life (USA) opted to make the bedraggled mall a destination that mingles shopping, entertainment and food and drink.

The Galleria’s renovation follows a national trend, urban planner Lisa Brownfield said, particularly as competition between malls gets stiffer and anchor stores appear more similar.

“The shopping mall has traditionally been the focus of attention in the community after . . . Main Street,” she said. “We’ve seen malls lagging a bit, and now they’re turning to entertainment. . . . I think that’s the way everything is going.”

Specifically, the Sherman Oaks plan reduces overall square footage by 7%, from 998,500 to 929,450, while incorporating 3,000 movie theater seats and 27,000 square feet of new restaurants to the existing site. The number of parking spaces is unaffected.

To increase navigability and curb appeal, the plan also calls for tearing down an existing garden office building at the northwest corner of Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards and replacing it with an open-air pedestrian plaza.

“This is the blood transfusion we have waited for in Sherman Oaks,” said Carrie Konjoyan, president-elect of the Chamber of Commerce. “This is what we have been waiting and praying for.”

The initial part of the two-phase construction could begin in spring or fall 1998, said Joy DeBacker, the mall’s general manager. In the two-year interim, the mall architect will revamp the conceptual plans, which initially foresaw an entertainment center with 22 movie screens, an IMAX theater and perhaps a virtual reality center.

Fans praised the renovation plans as a way to save the Valley’s signature mall, which has been losing money for about three years. But scrappy homeowner activist Gerald A. Silver, who did not attend the council meeting, repeated his warnings of increased crime, street congestion and drunk driving.

“The fight is far from over,” said Silver, president of the Homeowners of Encino, alluding to possible picketing and boycotting of the mall. He vowed to appeal each conditional-use permit for alcohol sales as they go before the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Sherman Oaks Homeowner Assn. President Richard H. Close cautioned that Feuer will pay a political toll if the project is not a success in constituents’ eyes.

“This is a project that [Feuer] wanted, and we hope he’s right,” Close said. From here on out, he said, “this should not be a matter of litigation. Instead, it needs to be a political matter for the election a year from now.”

Close said he preferred to concentrate on concessions that the mall agreed to. “We’re not 100% pleased,” he said, “but neither party got 100% of what they wanted.”

Most recently, at a meeting of the council’s Planning and Land Use Management committee, the Galleria owners agreed to two key concessions at Feuer’s urging.

The Galleria voluntarily agreed to limit alcohol sales at the restaurants to 30% of the total food and beverage sales; the mall previously had held firm at 35%, fearing that a further voluntary cap would hamper leasing efforts.

Feuer also secured a guarantee that aesthetic improvements--from crosswalk painting to tree-planting--will take place in the first part of the two-phase renovation plan before a certificate of occupancy is issued for the theaters. The first phase will also include construction of the 10,000-square-foot pedestrian plaza at Ventura and Sepulveda boulevards.

The hours of alcohol sales were also sharply curtailed, with four restaurants open from 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. Sundays through Thursdays, while the others must close by 10 p.m. On weekends, one restaurant may stay open until 1 a.m., while the others must close by midnight. The mall had asked that five restaurants be allowed to stay open until 2 a.m.

In all, the renovation is subject to about 60 zoning and planning conditions, which is “appropriate and fair,” Feuer said.

The next step, according to Feuer and mall general manager DeBacker, is to get officials at Robinsons-May, which has two department stores anchoring the mall, to sit down with Galleria officials and plot its role in the renovation.

“All of the people involved in this project have improved it,” Feuer said. “This was a very important opportunity for the residents of Sherman Oaks to help shape the future of their community.”