Tale of a Bookstore

James Fugate and Tom Hamilton are demolition experts.

For the better part of a decade, they have been about the business of demolishing the myth that black people don’t buy books.

Their Eso Won bookstore on North La Brea Avenue in Inglewood has become one of the foremost cultural centers in Southern California’s black community, and it is an obligatory and profitable stop for virtually every black author on a book tour.

Lines have stretched down the block for writers ranging from Berry Gordy to Christopher Darden, from Terry McMillan to Wynton Marsalis. And those writers often sell more books at Eso Won than they sell at more tony Westside shops.

But the up-by-the-bootstraps bookstore is now embroiled in an increasingly public dispute with a partnership that includes former NBA great Earvin “Magic” Johnson. The flap reflects the sensitivity and difficulty surrounding efforts to pump new economic life into minority communities.

Earlier this year, with their store bursting at its seams, Eso Won’s owners set out to find larger quarters. They signed a lease in August for space at the Ladera Center in Ladera Heights, an upper-income, racially mixed community in Southwest Los Angeles.

But even as Hamilton and Fugate were packing up and preparing to move, the Ladera Center was sold to a partnership that includes Johnson.

And their presumptive deal dried up like a raisin in the sun, leaving Eso Won’s owners complaining that they had been passed over in favor of a large chain bookstore. The center’s new owners say they have made no decision on any new leases.

When Johnson’s group bought the center, the venture was announced as part of an effort to develop retail centers in underserved urban and minority communities in California.

In a Times interview before the purchase, Johnson said his goal is to be a successful businessman so that he can “show other African Americans that they could make it too.”

Hamilton cannot restrain his sarcasm these days when talking about how the Ladera Center fits into Johnson’s goal.

“That means to have somebody else come in, set up their businesses, have black people go and support those businesses and then run the money out of the community,” he said.

Not so, said Ken Lombard, president of the Johnson Development Company and Magic Johnson Theaters.

“We absolutely plan to take a look at a number of tenants like Eso Won and other minority [businesses] and give them an opportunity to be a part of this center,” Lombard said. “Keep in mind, we’ve only owned this center for only about a month.”

When the new owners bought the property, Lombard said, “There was no lease from Eso Won that was passed on to us to say, ‘This is a done deal and this is part of your deal.’ All of Eso Won’s conversations were with the previous ownership group.”

In July, San Diego-based Burnham Pacific Properties Inc. and the California Urban Investment Partnership, a joint venture that includes Johnson’s company, bought the center for $20.1 million.

Eso Won’s “timing was unfortunate,” said a commercial property leasing expert who is familiar with the sale of the property but spoke on the condition of anonymity. “The existing owners had approved their deal. The new buyers may have a different direction they want to go in.”

The new owners are still developing their leasing and management plans, Lombard said, and that is why neither Eso Won nor anyone else has been given a lease.

In addition, he said, the new owners are waiting to see if the Ralphs market, the center’s anchor store, might need additional space to expand.

That response does not satisfy Fugate and Hamilton, who insist that their store was passed over because the new owners did not feel that Eso Won “is big enough to play in their game.”

The leasing expert said Johnson and his partners are “looking for bigger tenants.”

Fugate and Hamilton said they had been told by well-connected business sources that the center’s new owners want to try to attract a chain such as Barnes & Noble or Borders.

Lombard said it is “absolutely not true” that Eso Won was not given a lease because the new owners are courting a large chain, again citing the still-unfinished leasing plan. He “categorically” denied that the new owners feel that Eso Won is too small for the center.

A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble in New York would not discuss possible new locations, except to say that her records do not show any new stores “coming to Los Angeles at this time.” Officials at Borders Inc. in Ann Arbor, Mich., could not be reached for comment.

Although their Ladera Center deal fell through, Eso Won still has to move. Its owners say they have outgrown their Inglewood space, and they did not renew their current lease, which expires Sept. 30.

The store will move Oct. 1 to a smaller shopping center near La Brea and Coliseum Street in Los Angeles.

Reflecting on their failed efforts to land space in the Ladera Center, Fugate said: “It hurts.”

When the property was sold, he said, “There was a lot of good feeling among our customers that Magic had taken it over and we were moving into that center.”

Hoping to get Johnson and his partners to honor the lease they had been negotiating with the previous owners, Fugate said, he sent the new owners a copy of the lease.

“We faxed them a letter telling them the steps we had taken and saying we were waiting to hear from them,” Fugate said. “We’ve never heard from them. They never called us.”