They Fought the Mall, and the Mall Lost
If “Erin Brockovich” could make millions at the box office, why not this:
A discount clothing store, clinging only to its 30-year lease and a fierce belief in itself, single-handedly thwarts a mall developer’s vision for a unique new shopping center. Along the way, in an exciting climax at City Hall, the company survives a plan to kill it.
Working title: “Burlington Coat Factory.”
These days, real life is every bit as good as fiction over at the corner of Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue in Huntington Beach. That’s where the Burlington Coat Factory and its 130 employees are holding down the fort against Ezralow Retail Property LLC over the latter’s plans to enliven the moribund Huntington Beach Mall.
The discount store is one of only two stores not boarded up in the enclosed part of the mall, which basically looks like a quarantine center. The other is Montgomery Ward, which has announced it’s going out of business.
Burlington says it isn’t going anywhere, and that’s where our plot really takes off.
Ezralow President Douglas Gray has a vision for the center, something he calls the Crossings at Huntington Beach. He imagines an Italian village motif, with cobblestone streets, restaurants and shops. He’ll even throw in some street carts. Think of Main Street at Disneyland, and you get the idea.
“It’s designed to give the impression you came upon a 400-year-old Italian village, gutted it and turned it into a retail center,” Gray says.
For reasons that perhaps don’t need explaining, Gray’s Renaissance village didn’t include a discount clothing store.
First, he hoped to buy out Burlington. No thanks, the company said. We love your Italian thing, and we’d like to be part of it.
Uh, thanks but no thanks, Gray said.
An Old Lease on Life
The doughty store simply tapped its lease, which runs to 2025. Gray then hoped the Huntington Beach City Council would give him the five votes needed to condemn Burlington through eminent domain.
In November, after Burlington employees and customers petitioned the council, Gray got three votes.
In this country, that’s how visions go kaput.
“If Burlington is in there, the concept doesn’t happen,” Gray says flatly.
To Burlington, its success at City Hall is nothing short of life-affirming.
John Sonnenberg, who manages the Huntington Beach store’s coat and outerwear department, is savoring the victory. “I’m a regular, average guy,” he says. “I don’t know much about trendy clothing, but even I recognize some of the names we carry here. Jones New York and Calvin Klein and the Italian-made silk suits. This isn’t stuff I can go in to a local Kmart and look for in the blue-light special.”
Beyond that, Sonnenberg says, justice prevailed. “I realize one thing, that any time you’re dealing in the world of finance and politics, nothing is over until you see the final project. Anything can happen. One thing I know is that people stood up and said, ‘This isn’t right, and you ought to do what’s right.’ That may have upset some apple carts, but the bottom line is that it was our right as Americans to do it.”
That kind of talk no doubt leaves Gray with a dull ache in his temples. “There are few pieces of land where you could really build something as nice as we had proposed,” he says. “This was one of the two or three we could have. To be forced to build to a much lower common denominator, yeah, it bothers me a bit.”
Having said ciao to Crossings, Gray says his new plan for the center likely will be something akin to the Tustin Market Place.
Veteran Councilman Peter Green, casting one of the three votes that saved Burlington, says he was open-minded at the start. Ultimately, he says, he decided it was unfair to kick out one company with a valid lease only to replace it with another company that might better fit a shopping center design.
That’s hard to argue with.
I can’t tell if anyone is playing poker here. Will Burlington allow itself to be bought out of its lease? Does Gray mean it when he says Burlington and Crossings aren’t compatible?
For now, Sonnenberg says Burlington wants to help. “We’re upgrading as we speak,” he says. “New fixtures, we’re planning a new tiling look with actual real ceramic tile, just to fit in.”
As Sonnenberg spoke, I could swear I heard Douglas Gray’s temples start throbbing again.
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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.
