Commerce Hopes to Remake Image With Retail, Entertainment Project
The city of Commerce--long known as a blue-collar industrial center--seeks to become a regional shopping and entertainment mecca as well with plans for a 40-acre complex along the Santa Ana freeway.
The proposed 400,000-square-foot retail and entertainment project would connect the Citadel outlet shopping center on the north with the Commerce Club casino on the south. Projects of similar size and scope usually cost $60 million to $70 million to develop, according to real estate observers.
City officials said they are in the process of entering into exclusive negotiations with developer Lennar Partners, a subsidiary of Miami-based L&R; Property Corp. The city also seeks to buy land for the project that is now occupied primarily by warehouses and industrial buildings, according to Justin McCarthy, community development director for Commerce.
“We do not have in this area a state-of-the-art, family-oriented dining, retail and entertainment center,” McCarthy said of the densely populated area southeast of downtown Los Angeles. “We think there is a void in the market for this kind of use.”
Commerce and Lennar spokesmen said they envision a cluster of movie theaters, restaurants, stores, a cultural center and possibly a live-music club to connect the outlet mall and casino.
“We think we can draw and provide a venue for the surrounding communities,” said Lange Cottrell, vice president of commercial development for Lennar. The site “offers tremendous access and exposure from the larger market area we think we can draw from.”
Lennar--which will soon break ground on a major office complex in the San Fernando Valley’s Warner Center--said it would form a partnership with the owners of the Commerce Casino, a card club, to develop the entertainment project. The Commerce Casino is building a 197-room Crowne Plaza Hotel as part of an expansion. Officials from the Commerce Casino did not return phone calls asking for comment.
Santa Monica-based retail consultant Rob York of Fransen Co. said the center’s success will depend largely on how well the casino, outlet mall and entertainment center are interwoven. The project’s backers might also face a challenge promoting Commerce as a leisure destination, he said.
“It’s not necessarily where you drop an entertainment center,” York said.
McCarthy said he expects the city and Lennar to enter into a 180-day exclusive negotiation period early next month. The project would take three to four years to complete.
