Glendale's two mammoth malls getting along, for now

Remember all the concern from the Glendale Galleria that the opening of the Americana at Brand -- Rick Caruso's upscale mall next door -- would hurt business. Well, going into the holiday season, the Daily News' Gregory J. Wilcox says both malls seem to be co-existing just fine, thanks to foot traffic between them:

They're encouraged by the foot traffic drawn by the malls' proximity and their central location in a thriving city of nearly 200,000 people. "We're running a modest (sales) increase going into the fourth quarter," said Janet Lafevre, senior marketing director at the Galleria, where bankrupt Mervyn's will close a store by the end of the year. Rick Caruso, who developed upscale Americana at Brand across the street, has similar high hopes as his outdoor complex enters its first holiday shopping season. "We are ahead of projections," said Caruso, CEO of Caruso Affiliated. "Our retailers are holding up remarkably well."

Other, smaller shopping malls aren't doing so hot, according to The Times' Roger Vincent and David Pierson:

Life Plaza Center in San Gabriel used to teem with diners heading to Green Village, a Chinese restaurant in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped mall on Valley Boulevard. But after the eatery closed five months ago, the 7,500-square-foot space remained vacant. With no tenants stepping forward and fewer customers clogging the parking lot, the plaza is quiet, with a curiously dark core. It's a scene repeated in various forms throughout the region, as the economic crash that started rolling through single-family housing more than a year ago begins to hit shopping centers, turning what had been a residential phenomenon into one that threatens commercial real estate as well.

-- Shelby Grad

Photo: Shoppers at the Glendale Galleria.  Carlos Chavez/Los Angeles Times.

Comments

[susan]

A number of visitors to the Americana have pointed out that its trolley should have actually extended beyond its own boundaries into the city and maybe to the neighbor mall to be genuinely useful and provide a service to shoppers and the city -- instead, like at the Grove, it has pricey parking. Not a hit in Glendale, which isn't used to it, and from where you can shop/ park for free at Burbank's many malls) and forces traffic to spill into the streets.

It would have made sense for the 2 malls to get together and cooperate with each other and the city on traffic. (They also shot off fireworks recently without telling the neighbors -- again, too much insularity.) Not a good model from the guy who claimed he wanted to built "neighborhoods in L A, even if I have to build them all myself."

So it exacerbates rather than alleviates parking/ walking/ traffic problems. NOT a good "message" from the man who would be Mayor. He also didn't find it "cost effective" to include any "green" planning in his own mall. Plus visitors find the "keep off the grass" signs and guards' attitudes unfriendly.

Others point out that the mall doesn't work well as a mixed-use living/ shopping/ dining area, kind of phony like that old Jim Carrey movie where he lives inside a reality tv set and doesn't know it. Except here, residents and shoppers DO and seem to feel too inhibited.

The NO Smoking policy in Glendale is a good one, and approved of by people in places like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, but apparently not by many in Glendale, where among other issues, a large local Armenian population smokes as they hang out over coffee and play backgammon or chess. Some complain that both malls shoe away people who "loiter" too long, and it's not a friendly, small-town atmosphere like the rest of Old Glendale or the Armenian sections. IS it a mall area to attract people from out of town, or for locals?