Buena Park Mall Buys New Look

BUENA PARK —  One of Orange County’s oldest regional shopping centers is getting a $30-million face-lift that’s designed to lure more shoppers by placing a heavier emphasis on food, entertainment and specialty shops.

Redevelopment plans unveiled on Wednesday at the aging Buena Park Mall include a 500-seat food court, two family-style restaurants and, possibly, an expanded movie theater complex, to be completed by spring 1997. The center that opened in 1961 as an outdoor mall also will get a flashy new exterior, along with a new main entrance and a major interior redecorating for its storefronts.

“It’s an antiquated mall that was pretty much abandoned by its previous owner,” said Jonathan Genton, vice president of Los Angeles-based Helios Management Co., which purchased the mall in 1995. “But when we’re done, it will look like it was built yesterday.”

The new look planned for Buena Park Mall is part of a growing wave of renovations nationwide by developers who are scrambling to restore flagging consumer interest in their aging properties. The New York-based International Council of Shopping Centers reports that renovation projects now outnumber new mall construction by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.

That trend is evident in Southern California, where developers built more than 50 major regional malls during the past four decades. As local malls reach the end of their useful life, they’re increasingly likely to be renovated or knocked down to clear the way for new retail concepts

At Buena Park Mall, the renovation was driven by the fact that sales have steadily fallen as shoppers moved to other, nearby centers. Sales per square foot, an important retail industry measure, in recent years tumbled from the high $300s to the low $200s.

The mall’s owner and operator are betting that the new look--and several new tenants that will be added--will bolster the mall’s image in surrounding neighborhoods. And, they’re going to make a concerted effort to attract tourists who drive by the mall every day on the way to nearby Knott’s Berry Farm.

“In the long term, something will have to be done with these properties,” said Jerry Yahr, a senior vice president with Newport Beach-based Koll Real Estate Group. “An old property can limp along for some period of time, but a point arrives when something just has to be done.”

Projects completed or planned in Orange County include:

* A Washington, D.C.-based developer plans to bulldoze The City, an ailing shopping mall in Orange, and replace it with a 1.2-million-square-foot center top-heavy with themed restaurants, a massive movie theater complex and dozens of value-oriented retail shops.

* Municipal officials in Mission Viejo are talking to the DeBartolo Realty Corp. about a possible renovation of the Mission Viejo Mall, which looks much the same as it did when it opened in 1979.

* Last year, Anaheim Plaza, a traditional shopping center that had fallen upon hard times, was knocked down to make way for a new “power center” with a Wal-Mart as its major tenant.

* Laguna Hills Mall in 1994 completed the last stage of a renovation that included a new look as well as a dramatically different tenant list.

Retail experts say that two major forces are driving the redevelopment projects: lower real estate prices and the shopping public’s fickle tastes.

California’s stalled real estate market is making many homeowners weep, but the recession is sparking a wave of business for developers who specialize in revamping tired mall properties.

“Under the old land prices, the economics just wouldn’t work out,” said Kent Digby, executive vice president of the Mills Corp., which plans to redevelop The City mall as a value-oriented center. “But now, with a 30-year-old property, we’re getting to the point where it’s affordable to knock it down and start over.”

As far as customers are concerned, even well-maintained malls start to look like something out of “the old ‘Partridge Family,’ ” said shopping center council spokesman Mark Schoifet. “You have to constantly change things at a shopping center or you’ll be left in the dust.”

Buena Park Mall has changed--it was converted to an indoor mall in the late 1970s and has been remodeled since--but even loyal shoppers say that the center needs major renovations.

“They let it go down pretty badly in the past few years,” said Carol Schrader, a 54-year-old Anaheim resident who shops regularly at the mall. Schrader said that the remodel should lure back customers “because it’s just so convenient to get to. You don’t have to drive all the way to Brea Mall or somewhere else.”

Sanford Goodkin, a San Diego-based real estate industry consultant, cautioned that some mall owners will have to face the fact that their properties have outlived their usefulness: “Some are dinosaurs . . . that have forgotten to fall down.”

“Maybe the land has real value as a medical center or a residential project with a touch of retail,” Goodkin said. “Developers have to learn to look at these properties as real estate assets--not just as shopping centers.”