New Life for Inner-City Mall Project.

Nine months after the collapse of Earvin "Magic" Johnson's attempt to redevelop the rundown Santa Barbara Plaza, another developer has stepped in with a new proposal, breathing life back into the five-year, inner-city revitalization effort.

Chris Hammond's Capital Vision Equities, which is redeveloping the nearby Chesterfield Square, has quietly assembled up to 80 percent of the properties in the Crenshaw-district plaza and is in negotiations with several potential anchor tenants.

He has also hired prominent architect Jon Jerde -- of Universal CityWalk and San Diego Horton Plaza fame -- to design the project.

Capital Vision intends to submit its proposal early next month to the L.A. Community Redevelopment Agency, which will decide later this summer whether to enter into exclusive negotiations with Hammond's partnership.

The final square footage and price tag of the Santa Barbara Plaza redevelopment project has yet to be determined. If permission is granted by the CRA, a deal could be finalized by next spring and construction could begin in the fall of 2001.

Capital Vision and partner Katell Properties broke ground last month on Chesterfield Square, a 275,000-square-foot retail project near Western and Slauson avenues -- the largest commercial development project in South Central L.A. in more than a decade. So far, Home Depot, McDonald's, Food 4 Less and Hollywood Video have committed to that $75 million, 22-acre project, which is also backed by pro football player Keyshawn Johnson, a native of the area.

"Once we were closing loans on Chesterfield Square and had signed up many of the critical leases there, we started looking around the area to see what's next," Hammond said. "We were just looking at the notion of tying up one or two properties at Santa Barbara Plaza, with an eye toward doing something there way down the line. But we found that no one else was buying up the property, and in four months we got 80 percent of the properties. People were so frustrated with the lack of progress that they were willing to sell."

City officials hope that the success Capital Vision has demonstrated to date on its Chesterfield Square project translates to Santa Barbara Plaza, breaking the five-year logjam on the site.

"This is an extremely significant step," said Teresa Wallette, chief of staff to L.A. City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, whose district includes both Santa Barbara Plaza and Chesterfield Square. "We've been trying to get this project moving for five years, and it's really encouraging to see so much movement in just four months."

Rocky relationship

The council office's initial reaction to the Capital Vision proposal is a stark contrast to the often rocky relationship that Ridley-Thomas had with Magic Johnson's development company, which was the lead partner in the last effort to redevelop Santa Barbara Plaza.

The councilman was initially very enthusiastic about Johnson Development Co.'s $100 million proposal; after all, the same firm had developed the highly successful Magic Johnson Theatres directly across the street.

But two years ago, Ridley-Thomas had a highly publicized falling out with Johnson over the developer's support of a bid to build a football stadium in Carson. Ridley-Thomas was pushing hard for redevelopment of the Coliseum, while Johnson jumped aboard Michael Ovitz's effort to build a stadium in Carson.

Ridley-Thomas and Johnson managed to reconcile their differences quickly and work together again on the Santa Barbara Plaza project. However, with the developer pushing for $33 million more in public funds than the CRA was willing to commit, the councilman began to lose patience as negotiations dragged on for more than a year.

"The time period that elapsed made our hopefulness wane on the Magic Johnson proposal," Wallette said.

The final straw came last August when word spread that the two key anchor tenants in the Johnson Development proposal, Wal-Mart and Home Depot, had pulled out. Wal-Mart opted to go into the recently vacated Macy's store in the adjacent Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza Mall, while Home Depot decided to go into Chesterfield Square.

When the anchor tenants pulled out, a clearly frustrated Ridley-Thomas urged the CRA to end exclusive negotiations with Johnson and open the site to new bidders; the CRA pulled the plug on Johnson in November, throwing the redevelopment project back to square one.

Public funds still needed

Hammond said Capital Vision's project will be smaller than what Johnson Development had been proposing, which would likely translate into a smaller public subsidy than what Johnson was seeking. Nonetheless, he said, a public contribution to the project would be absolutely vital.

"This project won't work without some sort of public funds," Hammond said. "I think everyone realizes that."

Even the CRA acknowledges the need for public funds.

"The support is there for public funds; it's just a matter of finding the appropriate level," said John McCoy, the CRA's deputy administrator for development management. Already, several million dollars in federal Economic Development Administration funds and other federal funds have been committed to the site, he added.

Meanwhile, Hammond has brought famed architect Jon Jerde on board as principal designer on the project, which represents Jerde's first foray into South Central L.A.

"We have long been interested in urban renewal projects and pursued them all over the world," said Rick Poulos, executive vice president with Jerde Partnership Inc. "But we want to make a special effort to work on urban renewal projects here in our home city of Los Angeles; this project fits the bill perfectly."

He noted that Jerde has projects in downtown L.A. and is working with developer Jerry Snyder on several projects throughout the city.

"We are especially excited about this project because Capital Vision Equity has shown tremendous skill in matching the tenant mix to the needs of the local community," Poulos said.

He said the preliminary design for the Santa Barbara Plaza redevelopment project calls for linkages with the Baldwin Hills-Crenshaw Plaza Mall across the street.

"We don't see ourselves competing with them, but rather as an extension of the mall," he said.