Mixed-Use Project Is Fine-Tuned in Glendale

Plagued by more than a decade of delays, Glendale is moving closer to firming up plans for a proposed 16-acre “urban neighborhood” in the heart of town.

The Glendale Town Center project, now under review by the City Council, is not meant to be another enclosed shopping mall, but a blend of housing, shopping, open space and entertainment, officials said.

It’s a plan whose time has come--again, said Philip Lanzafame, Glendale’s assistant director of development services.

“The concepts go back hundreds of years,” Lanzafame said. “It’s a trend we see coming up in cities more and more. A return to the urban core is something being seen throughout the country.”

The project at Brand Boulevard and Colorado Street, just southeast of the retail heavyweight Glendale Galleria, has been on the drawing board since the 1980s. At one time, it was planned as an addition to the Galleria, officials said.

But with the mergers of a number of large retailers, Southland shopping malls have been hard-pressed to secure anchor stores, said Jack Kyser of the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

“With the Town Center, they’re making a leap into new territory,” Kyser said. “It’s a downtown, open-air center in which they don’t depend on anchor stores. It’ll be an interesting experiment.”

Kyser said he is unaware of any other retail development in Southern California in which homes play such a prominent role. The residential units--largely brownstones or upper-level units with stores below on the ground floor--should appeal to many.

“It’s a new take on an old theme and it does make sense,” he said.

“Glendale has a large Armenian population, many of whom are more accustomed to that kind of mixed-use neighborhood, with homes, shopping, offices and entertainment, than they are to the suburban neighborhoods,” Kyser said. “Or for a New Yorker pining for a taste of New York, this might be just the thing.”

Sitting as the city’s Redevelopment Agency, the Glendale City Council is meeting this week with the project’s developer, Caruso Affiliated Holdings of Santa Monica, to consider the latest design revisions. Last month, the council criticized the design’s shortage of open space and parkland.

A community open house is scheduled from 6:30 to 8:30 tonight in the Perkins Building Community Room, 141 N. Glendale Ave.