Glendale’s Long-Stalled Town Center Gets a Builder

In a 4-0 vote Tuesday, the City Council chose Rick Caruso to build the city’s long-stalled Town Center project--a 13-acre outdoor “urban neighborhood” featuring offices, restaurants and retail stores.

Caruso, who beat out veteran Los Angeles-based developer Jerry Snyder, takes over a project that has been on the drawing board for 15 years but was never built because of changes in the design plan and developers. Glendale officials hope it will boost business at existing downtown retail areas, including the Marketplace, the Exchange and the Glendale Galleria.

The City Council, acting as the city redevelopment agency board, liked the balance Caruso struck between a central community gathering place and a mix of retail space that incorporated national chains with smaller local retailers, said Glendale Redevelopment Director Jeanne Armstrong.

“We were impressed with the way he was able to combine large and small retail within his projects,” Armstrong said. “And the overall environment was pleasant, walkable.”

Armstrong said the next step is for the city to work out details of the deal with Caruso. Officials must also decide whether the development will include movie theaters and a hotel.

Caruso’s company--Caruso Affiliated Holdings of Santa Monica--has designed a number of mixed-use projects with community centers. In addition to planning the Commons at Calabasas, Caruso’s firm developed the Promenade at Westlake and Encino Marketplace.

Other projects now under development include the Grove at Farmers Market, a 640,000-square-foot retail and entertainment center on 20 acres next to historic Farmers Market in Los Angeles.

His firm is working on both the design of the Playa Vista town center and a leasing plan that will help select the types of tenants the owners and developers hope to attract.

Like those projects, and in contrast to the Galleria, the Glendale Town Center will be built in an open-air configuration that will include a city park and a public plaza.

“The goal is to create a great civic space that helps to define downtown Glendale,” Caruso said. “It’s clearly intended to be the gathering place for the city. And that’s what we’ve built our company on.”

The Town Center site is at Colorado Street and Brand Boulevard next to the Glendale Galleria mall, which was developed in two phases (Gallerias I and II) by Newport Beach-based Donahue Schriber.

During the 1990s, the city worked with the company to develop Town Center, then known as “Galleria III.” Donahue Schriber abandoned the project in 1999, citing the high cost of land and its inability to secure commitments from hotel and movie theater partners.

Caruso said he was undaunted by the project’s past failures and its long history, dating from the 1980s.

“From a historical perspective, every project we’ve done has been as the second or third developer,” Caruso said. “ I’m more comfortable in that position because you typically have a road map as to what the problems are, the community issues and the interest of the retailers. We have had a lot of the information gathered for us.”

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Snyder, the veteran Los Angeles-based developer who was not selected, also has a long history of commercial real estate development. His firm built the posh Wilshire Courtyard office property in the Miracle Mile area as well as the Water Garden campus in Santa Monica.

He also is working on the $140-million redevelopment of Valley Plaza, a shopping center in North Hollywood.