Malls tackle retail slump with planned renovations.Malls tackle retail slump with planned renovations Renovation is the tag on tag on Verb to add at the end of something: a throwaway remark, tagged on at the end of a casual conversation Verb 1. San Fernando Valley San Fernando Valley Valley, southern California, U.S. Northwest of central Los Angeles, the valley is bounded by the San Gabriel, Santa Susana, and Santa Monica mountains and the Simi Hills. shopping malls this summer, with the goals being revamping parking lots, insetting vaulted skylights and inlaying inlaying, process of ornamenting a surface by setting into it material of different color or substance, usually in such a manner as to preserve a continuous plane. "marble" floors. The Promenade and Topanga Plaza in Woodland Hills, and the Northridge Fashion Center Northridge Fashion Center is a large shopping mall located in Northridge, California. It opened in 1971. It was severely damaged during the Northridge Earthquake in 1994, but renovated extensively in 1995 and 1998. are all spending money this year to upgrade their facilities. Topanga Plaza is spending $45 million during the next five years to build marble columns, lay down a "marble" floor, place wooden handrails on its staircases and carve skylights into the building's ceilings. The owners are doing a "complete renovation of the mall," said John Lyda, director of development of Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, for May Centers, a St. Louis-based developer and operator of shopping malls and owner of Topanga Plaza. The plaza, located along Topanga Canyon Boulevard, is a 1.1 million-square-foot mall with 150 stores and "one" vacant tenant space, Lyda said. The mall's anchor tenants are May Co., Broadway, Nordstrom and Montgomery Ward, and it caters to the mainstream shopper, unlike its neighboring counterpart, the Promenade. Topanga Plaza underwent an expansion in 1983 and 1984, which added Nordstrom to the existing structure. The multi-million dollar renovation shows the mall's owner has faith in the resurgence of retail, Lyda noted. At the more posh Promenade down the street, hammering can also be heard. Mall officials are converting brick tile floors into marble, installing vaulted skylights in the ceilings and putting in plants. Promenade marketing director Elizabeth Pederson-Knapp declined to comment on how much was being spent on the remodeling remodeling /re·mod·el·ing/ (re-mod´el-ing) reorganization or renovation of an old structure. bone remodeling . Easing traffic jams in the parking lot is the goal of officials further north at the Northridge Fashion Center. Mall officials are painting new signs in the center's massive parking area so that traffic can be directed in a more orderly fashion, said Marianne Shannon, marketing director for the Northridge Fashion Center. "The flow of getting in and out will be much quicker and more defined," Shannon said, noting phase one of remodeling will also include the planting of palm trees. Shannon refused to comment on cost. The mall's first remodeling phase started in July and is scheduled to be completed by Nov. 1, she said. Then, the mall will start a second phase of upgrading. In this phase, the plaza will be recarpeted and retiled, Shannon said. Northridge Fashion Center has six anchor tenants, which include Robinson's, Broadway, Bullock's, JC Penney Co. Inc., Sears Roebuck and Co. and May Co. Two of these stores were added when the mall underwent a major expansion in 1989, bringing the total size of the mall to 1.5 million square feet and qualifying it as the largest shopping mall in the San Fernando Valley. Although the immediate goal at valley shopping malls may be to renovate, several center owners have also been considering future expansion. Laurel Plaza is one. Officials are "thinking about redoing the whole center," said Everett Shine, vice president of development at the Brentwood office of Cleveland-based Forest City Development. The plaza currently has 400,000 square feet of retail stores, fast food outlets, and a family-owned delicatessen, all anchored by a May Co. The overall look of the mall is outdated and not up to par with most shopping malls of today, although the facades of some of the individual stores, such as Contempo Casuals, are up to date. The Promenade is also planning to eventually expand. The mall's current tenants are Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue is a chain of upscale American department stores that is owned and operated by Saks Fifth Avenue Enterprises (SFAE), a subsidiary of Saks Incorporated. It competes in the elite luxury department store market with Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman and Barneys New , Robinson's and I. Magnin I. Magnin was a San Francisco, California-based high fashion and specialty luxury department store. Over the course of its existence, it expanded across the West into Southern California and the adjoining states of Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. . The expansion would include adding a Bullock's department store, converting I. Magnin into boutique shops and building a brand new I. Magnin. The already upscale shopping mall also plans to ultimately add a concierge and valet parking valet parking n. Parking arrangements provided by a commercial establishment, such as a restaurant, whereby patrons leave their cars at the entrance and attendants park and retrieve them. Noun 1. , Pederson-Knapp said. Its nearby competition, Topanga Plaza, already offers to park customers' cars for them. The Fallbrook Mall along Fallbrook Avenue in Woodland Hills is expanding continually, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. mall marketing director Christine Silvestri. Attached to the indoor shopping center shopping center, a concentration of retail, service, and entertainment enterprises designed to serve the surrounding region. The modern shopping center differs from its antecedents—bazaars and marketplaces—in that the shops are usually amalgamated into is a strip mall, anchored by a Sav-On drug store and a General Cinema. |
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