Finding Costa Mesa mall Triangle Square isn’t a problem.
“It’s the gateway to downtown,” said Wil Smith, principal of real estate investor and developer Greenlaw Partners, the mall’s new owner.
Getting tenants and drawing shoppers is another story.
The three-story mall, which sits at the end of the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway, has struggled to lure and keep tenants since it opened in 1992 at a cost of $62 million.
Newport Beach-based Greenlaw and partner Wilton, Conn.-based Commonfund Realty Inc. bought the mall in September for an undisclosed price from Triangle Square Investment LLC.
Pasadena-based Triangle Square Investment bought it in 1998 for an estimated $47 million.
In the past year, the mall has seen big tenants NikeTown, Barnes & Noble and Virgin Megastore leave.
Property managers and leasing teams also have come and gone.
City officials, frustrated by the mall’s floundering, had a frosty relationship with Triangle Square Investment.
Even shoppers,including Smith,were dissatisfied.
“Like anyone walking around the mall, I would wonder ‘Why aren’t they doing this? Why aren’t they doing that?'” he said.
“With absentee owners, there was a lot of wear and tear on the property,” Smith said. “The vacancy rates reflected that.”
Now Greenlaw is looking to breathe some life into Triangle Square.
Smith and John Tumminello, both former executives at Newport Beach-based Makar Properties LLC, started Greenlaw in 2003.
The Triangle Square deal marks the first shopping center buy for Greenlaw. The company has bought roughly 20 office and industrial properties, primarily in Orange County, totaling about $550 million.
The mall deal also marks the company’s first foray into housing development. Before the buy closed, Greenlaw worked with the city to get the go-ahead for adding condominiums.
After a poor relationship with the previous owners, city officials say they’re happy to be on the same page as Greenlaw when it comes to reinvigorating the area around Triangle Square.
The developer envisions homes with ocean views atop the mall, part of a city plan to revitalize the west side of Costa Mesa.
The city is pushing to add smaller, low-rise condos to the area, alongside live-work lofts, shops and offices.
“We don’t need the project to stand out. We want to make it work within the framework of the city,” Tumminello said. “They have a great vision for the area.”
Details still are being hammered out for Triangle Square’s makeover. The redevelopment would likely remove some of the mall’s 191,000 square feet of space on the top floor to make room for condos. Greenlaw’s talking with architects and plans to move toward final approvals next year.
Until redevelopment plans are finalized, don’t expect the developers to add too many tenants to the mall, which now is about half empty.
The new owners did score one coup: The Yard House restaurant, a tenant since 1999 that has helped revive the center as a nightlife spot, just renewed its lease through 2019.
It looks as though the center finally is in good hands, said Steele Platt, founder of Irvine-based Yard House Restaurants LLC.
“We’re really excited about Triangle Square having a new landlord now,” he said.
Upgrades to the mall are under way. Some of the storefronts have been tweaked, and the mall’s gotten some new landscaping.
Triangle Square now has managers on site from Costa Mesa-based RiverRock Real Estate Group Inc.
“The mall can look better,” Tumminello said. “We’re trying to bring some cachet to it.”
Greenlaw officials aren’t too worried about the effects of a slowing housing market on their condo plans.
“This will be a niche project. There aren’t going to be too many homes,” Smith said.
Greenlaw’s other big project in the works, in Irvine near John Wayne Airport, is more dependent on the strength of the local housing market.
The company is part owner of an 18-acre site, home to a number of industrial buildings and low-rise offices near Jamboree Road.
Greenlaw, along with Irvine-based Starpointe Ventures, has submitted initial plans to the city for up to 1,000 homes on the site, now known as Irvine Technology Center. Also planned are 120,000 square feet of offices and 15,000 square feet of shops.
The Greenlaw project is the second-largest development by acreage proposed for the Irvine Business Complex near John Wayne Airport, trailing only Lennar Corp.’s Central Park West project.
The company is hoping to get approvals for the Irvine development wrapped up by mid-2007, Tumminello said.
