Buenaventura Mall Sold to Subsidiary of Macerich Co.

A subsidiary of shopping center giant Macerich Co. has purchased Buenaventura Mall and is now poised to move forward with its long-awaited $50-million expansion.

Buenaventura Mall and two other shopping areas in Fresno and Huntington Beach were acquired at midnight Wednesday for a combined sale price of $125 million. An exact price for Buenaventura Mall was not announced.

Ventura city leaders heralded the deal as a catalyst to kick-start a key redevelopment project that has been mired in lawsuits, political battles and stalled negotiations.

“We think it is absolutely tremendous,” Mayor Jack Tingstrom said. “I think it is the most positive thing we have seen in the last two years.”

The sale means that the mall will now be owned, managed and leased by the same company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Macerich known as Macerich Buenaventura Limited Partnership.

“You are bringing together the operating hand with the financial hand,” said Lori Gatto, a senior vice president of the Santa Monica-based company, which has managed the mall since 1987. “We really see it as a win-win.”

Macerich Buenaventura is anxious to pursue the city’s expansion goals, Gatto said. City officials have set a meeting with mall retailers and Macerich representatives for early January to discuss the mall’s future.

“This project could break ground in spring of 1997,” said Steve Chase, assistant to the city manager and project coordinator for the mall deal. “That is very optimistic.”

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The Ventura City Council approved a $50-million expansion last year designed to upgrade the 30-year-old mall, which has deteriorated with age and has lost tenants in recent years.

The improvement plan calls for the addition of two new department store--Sears and Robinsons-May--plus 459,000 square feet of new retail space that would make it the largest mall in Ventura County.

But the project has been bombarded with criticism, first in the form of an unsuccessful ballot initiative targeting its disputed sales-tax arrangement with the developer.

The plan was then assailed by a failed referendum drive, and now faces a flurry of lawsuits filed by the city of Oxnard, which stands to lose Sears and Robinsons-May to the refurbished Ventura mall if the expansion goes through.

The mall’s former owner, MCA Buenaventura Associates LP, was leery of breaking ground on the project given the pending litigation, city officials said.

But officials are now are hopeful that a Feb. 10 trial date will resolve the legal issues and allow the mall’s aggressive new owner to begin the project.

“The only thing remaining is the stalling lawsuits by Oxnard,” Tingstrom said. “We are pretty excited.”

The development agreement approved by the City Council last year for the mall’s expansion will not be changed as a result of the purchase, city officials said.

But Gatto said the new owner may want to tinker with some design-related aspects.

“The project will move forward generally consistent with the already approved plans--not to say that there won’t be some changes to it,” she said.

The purchase of the mall by a Macerich subsidiary means that the shopping center falls back into the hands of the company whose affiliates owned it nine years ago.

In 1987, the mall was purchased by a limited partnership--Macerich California Associates LP--which was created by some Macerich senior executives, Gatto said.

“Macerich was involved with an ownership position in the past, but it was not the Macerich,” Gatto said. “It’s kind of splitting hairs, but there is a meaningful difference.”

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In 1994, an affiliate of LaSalle Partners in Chicago replaced the Macerich executives as managing general partners of the limited partnership, which was renamed MCA Buenaventura Associates LP.

Ranked among the 20 largest shopping center operators in the nation, Macerich Co. has been in the business of acquiring and redeveloping malls for more than 25 years.

But lately, Gatto said, “we have been on a roll.”

The purchase of Buenaventura Mall and the malls in Fresno and Huntington Beach are the most recent acquisitions for the company’s subsidiaries, which in the last 12 months have purchased nine retail centers for a total of $575 million.

Macerich now has ownership interests in 23 malls and three community centers across the nation, according to the company. Macerich operates eight malls in Southern California, including Simi Valley Plaza and Lakewood Center Mall.