Stores Ready to Open at New Complex; Mixed Reaction Is Expected
After riding out a sluggish economy and enduring community opposition, the developer of Porter Ranch Towne Center is getting ready to open its new retail complex to shoppers, but without the swanky outlets that neighbors had once hoped for.
Best Buy is set to open Friday, followed by Toys R Us on Saturday at the shopping center tucked in the foothills of the Santa Susana Mountains in the northwest San Fernando Valley.
“We are looking forward to the opening,” said Tom Zeiger, project manager for Shapell Industries Inc., which is developing the retail center with partner Liberty Building Co. under the name Porter Ranch Development Co.
“We believe that it will be a neighborhood shopping center . . . that will service the community,” he said.
The 46,000-square-foot Toys R Us store will mark its grand opening with appearances by costumed figures representing Barbie, Batman, the Cat in the Hat and other children’s story characters.
Best Buy sent out glossy brochures to local residents with coupons good for 10% price deductions, hoping to lure them to its 45,000-square-foot home electronics store.
A newly opened Winnetka Avenue exit from the 118 Freeway will give motorists direct access to the shopping center on Rinaldi Street between Winnetka and Corbin avenues.
This weekend’s store openings will be followed by a 130,000-square-foot Wal-Mart scheduled to open in June. A Sports Chalet is also expected to move into the shopping center, although no opening date has been set.
The arrival of the big-box stores--particularly Wal-Mart--in upscale Porter Ranch has rankled some neighborhood residents concerned about decreased property values.
“There are those in the community who will always dislike a Wal-Mart,” Zeiger said, “and there are some who are looking forward to it.”
As a concession, the discount giant has modified its operation. “There will be no auto or tire service,” Zeiger said. “That will make it more of an upscale Wal-Mart.”
The warehouse-style retailers are a far cry from the swanky shops--like Nordstrom, Pavilions and Starbucks--residents had envisioned when plans for the residential-retail project were approved by the Los Angeles City Council eight years ago.
“The $2-billion project will provide housing for 11,000 people and jobs for 20,000 when it is finished in the year 2010,” read a Times story in July 1990.
The proposed project would have included 3,395 residences ranging in price from $400,000 to $600,000. Six million square feet of commercial space would have included a 10-story office building, hotel and shopping center.
The “city within a city” was to rival glitzy Century City, the developer boasted.
That was before the bottom dropped out of the economy, forcing the developer to refocus its grand vision to fit a less lavish 1990s economic reality.
Across Southern California, changing market forces at the time made it difficult for developers to persuade investors to put up money for towering office buildings and sprawling regional malls.
Porter Ranch Development Co. cut commercial space at its development from 6 million to 4.5 million square feet. Plush hotels, posh apartment buildings and fancy hotels were put on hold. Tony department stores were replaced by large discount retailers.
City Councilman Hal Bernson, the longtime representative of the northwest Valley, lobbied the developer to sign ritzier tenants. “[Bernson] was not enthused about the big-box stores. He wanted a more upscale department store,” said Ali Sar, a spokesman for the councilman.
High-end stores, however, took a pass on the property. Said Zeiger: “The fact is, Nordstrom was not interested in the site and Wal-Mart was.”
Porter Ranch Towne Center is the first phase of a three-phase development project at the 300-acre property. Zeiger would not elaborate on the two remaining phases. “What is going to happen in the future, I am not prepared to say.”
Even so, a citizens’ advisory committee will continue to keep a watchful eye on development in the area and report back to city officials. The 15-member panel of Porter Ranch and Chatsworth residents was appointed by Bernson.
