The Promenade (formerly the Westfield Promenade) is a large dead shopping mall owned by Westfield Group and located on Topanga Canyon Boulevard in the Woodland Hills district of Los Angeles. It was previously known as The Promenade at Woodland Hills and Westfield Shoppingtown Promenade. The mall is anchored by a 16-screen AMC Theatre. By 2015, Westfield removed the property from its corporate website and had removed the Westfield name from all signage on the property and officially changed the name of the property to The Promenade. In October 2016, Westfield officially announced that the mall is going to be demolished and replaced by a new $1.5 billion residential development called Promenade 2035.
Video Westfield Promenade
History
Opened in 1973 as The Promenade at Woodland Hills, it was originally a high-fashion center anchored by J. W. Robinson's, Bullocks Wilshire and Saks Fifth Avenue. The Bullocks Wilshire store was renamed I. Magnin in 1990 and in 1995 became a Bullock's Men's store, being renamed Macy's in 1996. The Robinson's store was closed in 1993 and sold to Bullock's, becoming Macy's in 1996 as well. Following the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Saks Fifth Avenue used the opportunity to close their underperforming store and it was demolished in 1994 for the addition of the AMC Theatre, which opened in 1996.
The 34-acre retail development was originally conceived and developed by Kaiser Aetna as part of their master commercial-retail-residential development plan for their section of the massive former Warner Ranch now known as the Warner Center. Coldwell Banker was the property manager and Ernest W. Hahn, Inc., was the general contractor. A few months before the first store opened, Kaiser Aetna sold their interest in the mall to Continental Illinois Properties for an estimated $15 million. In March 1973, Robinson's was the first anchor store to open. Both Saks and Bullock's Wilshire followed by opening five months later.
In 1989, the center was acquired by the O'Connor Group from Pan American Properties.
The center was briefly acquired by Simon Property Group in 1997, before being sold in 1998 to Westfield America, Inc., a precursor to The Westfield Group. At that time it was renamed "Westfield Shoppingtown Promenade". The unwieldy "Shoppingtown" name was dropped in June 2005.
Westfield Promenade was plagued for years by tenant problems and slow business, although the addition of the movie theatre during renovations after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, more recent renovations in 2001 and the addition of several new retailers and restaurants briefly reignited interest in the center. However, a redevelopment of the Westfield Topanga (which is also owned by Westfield) in the mid-2000s overshadowed the Promenade, leaving the interior mall languishing and causing several anchor tenants such as Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Dick's Sporting Goods to leave. In 2015, Macy's shuttered their two Promenade stores.
By September 2015, Westfield had purchased the properties that it did not own within the mall area, usually owned by anchors, to enable the company to resell the property as an entire package for other uses. The company also had removed information about the mall from the Westfield website and had stripped the Westfield name from all of the signs at the mall. As of 2017, the links to the mall's website redirect to the Westfield Topanga website. Although Westfield still owned the property as of January 2016, the property is essentially a dead mall. Current tenants have filed a lawsuit against Westfield for allowing the property to deteriorate. According to a July 2016 Los Angeles Daily News article, Westfield told their tenants that they plan to close the interior of the mall "soon". Vacancy rates were estimated to be over 80%. It was also reported that Westfield officials told a Woodland Hills neighborhood council that Westfield was considering replacing the mall with upscale apartments. The Los Angeles Times called the decaying retail property "a drag on the neighborhood" while a Los Angeles City Councilman called it a "blighted site". In March 2016, a video was posted on YouTube which showed the state of the interior of the mall during the daytime with the mostly vacant interior shops, the lack of people within the sunny interior corridors, and a few customers within the restaurants located on the mall exteriors.
In October 2016, Westfield officially announced that they will replace the mall with a mixed-use residential and retail development that includes 1,400 upscale housing units, a grocery/pharmacy, a hotel, an office complex, plus an entertainment and sports center. The housing units would range from studio units to luxury villas. The name of the new development will be Promenade 2035. Current plans is to have new development open in stages, starting in 2020 and continuing on until 2035. Exterior tenants, such as the AMC Promenade 16, are going to be gradually moved over to Westfield Topanga's large expansion, The Village at Westfield Topanga, while the interior of the mall is being demolished.
In June 2017, the United States Postal Service moved their Woodland Hills Post Office into the vacant Macy's Men's and Furnishings departments after signing a short term 18 months lease. It was not clear what would happen with post office once Westfield starts the demolition of the existing mall structures or how long the postal service would remain at that location.
Maps Westfield Promenade
Square footage
- AMC Theatres (120,000 sq ft.)
Featured businesses
The Promenade currently features the following businesses, amongst others:
- AMC Theatres
- Corner Bakery Cafe
- Maggiano's Little Italy
- P.F. Chang's China Bistro
- Ruth's Chris Steak House
- United States Postal Service
See also
- Westfield Corporation
References
External links
- Last archive of the official Westfield Promenade website at the Wayback Machine (archived October 17, 2012)
- Promenade2035 website -- proposed multi-use development project to replace Westfield Promenade.
Source of article : Wikipedia
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