Plans for Mall Theater Complex Hit a Roadblock

Plans by the owner of Northridge Fashion Center to develop a jumbo-sized movie theater and restaurant complex on the site hit a roadblock Wednesday when the owner of the center’s Broadway store turned down an offer to buy it.

As a result, the mall’s Broadway store will close by the end of the month as planned, said a spokesman for Federated Department Stores Inc., the $15-billion Cincinnati-based retailing giant that operates Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

The impact on Broadway employees could not be determined.

Federated bought the Broadway chain last fall, and has since been trying to sell the Northridge store and six others.

In May, the owner of the Northridge shopping mall, MEPC American Properties Inc. in Dallas, announced with great fanfare that it would buy and demolish the Broadway store to help make room for its project to develop the northwest end of the shopping mall into a 20-screen movie theatre and restaurant center.

But Wednesday, Federated said it rejected offers from buyers for seven department stores throughout the state, including the Broadway store in Northridge.

“You’re kidding. That is news to me,” MEPC’s President David Gruber said.

Despite Wednesday’s announcement, Gruber said, “We are still definitely having discussions with [Federated]. It’s moving forward and I don’t anticipate a problem with it all coming together.”

MEPC still hopes to have the movie-restaurant complex open in Northridge by the fall of 1997, he said.

Merle Goldstone, a Macy’s spokesperson, would not comment on the price offered for the Broadway Northridge store, why it was turned down or what the next step would be to find a buyer.

Goldstone said the Northridge Broadway store is scheduled to close “by the end of this month. And that’s still the plan.”

The 1994 earthquake left Northridge Fashion Center as the most severely damaged shopping center in Los Angeles, and most of the mall was closed for more than a year for major repairs.

The Broadway store in Northridge was substantially rebuilt and reopened. But its parent company, Broadway Stores, continued to struggle, and last October Federated bought the chain.

Since then Federated has been converting some of the Broadway stores throughout the state into Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s while closing others.

MEPC’s plan to upgrade the Northridge mall with a bigger entertainment complex followed similar moves by other shopping centers.

This spring a 16-theater AMC movie complex opened, along with a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, at the Promenade Mall in Woodland Hills and has been drawing big crowds.