Janss Center Renovation Leaves Some Tenants Upset
All is not well among the bronze-colored fountains and pretty new facades of Janss Marketplace.
After a $60-million renovation that was expected to bring Ventura County’s oldest major shopping center back to prominence, the new ownership of the former Janss Mall is instead facing a public relations nightmare.
The Janss family, an integral part of Thousand Oaks since the city’s former ranching days, no longer owns the mall. It is now the property of Goldman Sachs, the New York-based investment banking powerhouse.
And several of the familiar local faces behind the mom-and-pop shops that call the mall home--or used to until recently--charge that the out-of-towners have terrorized tenants, callously doubling rents and harassing the little guys in a campaign to clean house and ease the way for big-name chain stores.
“My store was reminiscent of a time gone by; that’s what they told me,” said Joe Ehret, who recently closed Nicki’s Coffee Espressions because of a long-standing dispute with mall management. “Keep in mind that my store was only 3 years old.”
The sixtysomething Ehret and his wife, who invested their retirement savings into the coffee shop, brought the issue to the City Council and the public. Council members pleaded with Westfield Corp., the Goldman Sachs subsidiary that manages the mall, to grant the Ehrets a new lease, and hundreds of residents signed a petition on the couple’s behalf.
But the Ehrets said they were unable to come to a reasonable deal with Goldman Sachs. Last month, they decided to give up.
“Our retirement money is gone,” Ehret said. “We’re planning on selling our house because we can’t afford the mortgage any more. I’m forced to go back to work and, at my age, that’s not easy.”
So bad is the local outcry over the plight of the Ehrets and other small tenants at Janss Marketplace that Thousand Oaks businessman Larry Janss contends that his family’s reputation has been sullied. He would like Goldman Sachs to take his family’s name off its mall, he said.
“They’re besmirching our name,” Janss said. “I take pride in what my family has accomplished here. I’m still very active in the community, especially in the performing arts, and my name means a lot to me.
“I don’t like what’s going on at the Janss Mall,” he added. “They should take my name off that building. Maybe they could call it Goldman Sachs Fifth Avenue or something.”
Alan Osadchey, the new manager of Janss Marketplace, declined to discuss any specific disputes with tenants. But he said many of the fights have to do with design of the renovated mall, which was begun before Goldman Sachs took over the property.
Osadchey contends that the new mall ownership has been unfairly characterized as mean and heartless. The shopping center is still largely made up of small, locally owned businesses, not huge national chains, and more little stores are opening up every day, he said.
“We do have a face,” Osadchey said. “We do interact with the community, and we want to be good neighbors.
“What we have been accused of is far from true,” he added. “We have plenty of small stores here, and we will continue to include small tenants. The owner has a vision, and that is to revitalize the mall and create excitement.”
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Jim Derington is one of the mall’s newest tenants, and he too believes that Janss Marketplace is developing an undeserved reputation for brusque business tactics.
Derington and his wife, Kathy, longtime residents of Thousand Oaks, are about to open their second Beanscene Espresso shop at Janss Marketplace, and he said they have been treated fairly and professionally by Westfield Corp.
The complaints, he said, mostly come from people who do not believe that they should have to pay higher rents, even though the mall has undergone a $60-million overhaul and looks much better than before.
“Some people in the community don’t know all the facts,” Derington said. “They think this is a David versus Goliath situation, and it’s really not.
“For anyone to think that they are going to get by after an extensive renovation without a more significant contribution is just not realistic,” he said. “We’ve got the brand-new Caruso shopping center down the road, with Starbucks, Noah’s Bagels and Jamba Juice, and we have to be competitive.”
In one way or another, renovation of the aging shopping center, which was begun by Janss Corp., lies behind all the disputes.
By the 1990s, Janss Mall, which had opened for business in 1960, was looking hopelessly out of date. Business was also flagging.
Improvements were needed and, in 1994, Janss Corp. asked the city to help arrange part of the financing for the face-lift by issuing up to $35 million in bonds to generate cash for the project. To reimburse the city, Janss Corp. and the owners of the adjoining Sears store would pay a special tax for the next 30 years.
Council members approved the financing plan by a 4-1 vote--but only after assurances from Janss Corp. representatives that the existing tenants would not be forced out after the renovation.
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“There was a tremendous amount of support in the community for redoing the Janss Mall,” said Councilwoman Judy Lazar, who voted for the renovation. “It was dead, and there were a lot of people who wanted to see it go back to its former place in the community. You used to run into everyone there.”
However, the council was apparently not aware at the time that Janss Corp. was in bad financial straits. Facing bankruptcy, the company closed its doors last year--and financial backer Goldman Sachs took over the mall.
“There are some questions now as to what was really going on when we approved those bonds,” said Councilwoman Jaime Zukowski, who also voted for the renovation. “This was presented as a local owner that was important to the community.
“There was no suggestion that Janss Corp. was on precarious financial footing,” she said. “If there had been, my vote would have been different, I can assure you of that.”
Former Janss Corp. President William Janss could not be reached for comment last week. Larry Janss, who did not own any part of Janss Corp., said his cousin is no longer living in California.
Before the renovation even got underway, problems surfaced between tenants and Janss Corp. Some small business owners charged that the renovation was going to drastically alter their store space and therefore their leases.
Richard and Treasure Fang, owners of the Mandarin Wok restaurant, were among the tenants who learned the hard way that the renovation plans were clearly not always drafted with existing businesses in mind.
To their horror and complete surprise, the Taiwanese immigrants learned too late that as part of the face-lift, a new store would be built immediately in front of their restaurant. Concrete walls have been erected in front of their establishment, blocking its former entrance. To get inside, customers now have to walk through a tiny, hard-to-find walkway.
Business has plummeted, and the Fangs--who are embroiled in a legal battle with Goldman Sachs--believe that they were betrayed.
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“We just wanted to run our business,” said Richard Fang, looking around his nearly empty restaurant at lunchtime. “We didn’t want to cause any trouble. But this was too much. They can’t put a building in front of our store.”
Worse yet, the Fangs recently learned through their attorney that their restaurant is now in violation of city codes because of the improper entrance--and it can technically be shut down at any moment.
“We’re immigrants; we work like crazy seven days a week,” Treasure Fang said. “And they are putting pressure on us to leave. Is this the law in America? ‘The landlord can do whatever he wants?’ I hope that is not the truth.”
Joel Steinberg and his wife, Faye, found themselves in a similar situation. The former owners of the Brown Bag Deli, part of the mall for 13 years, negotiated a new lease with Janss Corp. to expand into a sit-down restaurant just before the renovation.
Then they learned that there were other plans for their site. They settled a lawsuit with Janss Corp. for $500,000, and the promise of a new lease and a new location with $400,000 in interior work. They got the money, but the work at their new site, in the mall’s food court next to the Mann multiplex, was not done, Joel Steinberg said.
The Steinbergs say they had no recourse but to renounce their lease and sue Goldman Sachs.
“We’re sandwich shop owners; we’re simple people,” Steinberg said. “The last thing we wanted to do was do battle with Goldman Sachs.”
However, the Brown Bag Deli name still hangs in the food court and at other places at the mall, part of a sign that announces “Coming Soon.”
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“That’s the kind of thing they do to put on a happy face for the community,” Steinberg said. “They make it look like we’re still coming, but we’re not.
“They want all the locals gone, and they don’t have a single moral misgiving about it.”
Lazar said she thinks the tenants who are complaining about rent hikes and the cost of improvements to their storefronts should realize that they have to share part of the burden of the renovation.
“It would be foolish to think that a property owner would put $60 million into a shopping center and not pass that on to the tenants,” she said.
She feels sorry for the merchants who have had to leave the mall for financial reasons, but says it is not the council’s duty to meddle in business disputes.
“It’s not the way you want things to turn out, but it’s not within our purview to get in the middle of this,” she said.
Osadchey said he is frustrated because he believes that the mall is in the middle of a renaissance, yet is facing harsh publicity. But he believes that as the stores continue to fill up and the customers come back, all will be forgotten.
“We’re really not trying to defend ourselves because we have done nothing wrong,” he said. “We’re just hoping to paint our picture of events. The flowers are in bloom. Exciting new things are happening. Is this so un-American?”
