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We've just got to do something with all these old malls we've got lying around! Plans filed with the City of Los Angeles on Thursday show that the festering Westfield Promenade in Woodland Hills will soon transform into housing and retail in the coming years, according to Curbed L.A. Last week, we reported the lonely Macy's, once a part of the Laurel Plaza Mall, in North Hollywood has shut down to make way for the NoHo West development.
The plans filed reveal intentions to build 1,432 units of housing on the property, as well as a pair of hotels with 572 guest rooms. The plans also include provisions for 244,000 square feet of retail space—including a grocery store and drug store—and 629,000(!) square feet of office space.
The project's developer is reportedly the retail giant Westfield, according to the Real Deal, which coincidentally owns the nearby Topanga mall. Westfield just finished a $500 million renovation of its Topanga mall that updated the mall's facilities and added an outdoor shopping 'Village' on the south side of Victory Boulevard.
As for the Promenade, located about a half-a-mile south of the Westfield Topanga, the mall has been on a steady decline for most of the 2010s. A lawsuit filed in 2015 by a Promenade tenant accused Westfield of letting the property decay into a general state of disrepair. Back in July, a tenant told the Daily News the mall is about 80 percent vacant.
Westfield purchased the Promenade mall back in 1998 for approximately $33 million. The mall was built during the 1970s.
Anyway, details about the timeline of the planned redevelopment of the mall are ambiguous for now. Any changes will have to undergo California's lengthy environmental review process, and there's no saying whether or not neighbors will file a lawsuit claiming the development will ruin Warner Center's neighborhood character. Regardless, like the proposed housing at the Laurel Plaza site in North Hollywood, the extra housing will go that much further to alleviating L.A.'s housing crisis, artificially inflating rents far higher than they need to be.
They say in journalism that two's a coincidence, but three's a trend. We'll be sure to keep you updated if any more Valley malls are set to be redeveloped into new housing and retail anytime soon (looking at you, Panorama Mall). Goodbye to mall that.
