The holiday shopping season is well under way at shopping malls throughout the county, but the Christmas cheer is muted at the former Crystal Court section of South Coast Plaza.
The complex on the west side of Bear Street is in the throes of a renovation into a home center, with many spaces still vacant or under construction and foot traffic light at many of the stores that have opened.
In a telling indicator, one evening last week the wait for the Santa at the main mall approached an hour, while the Santa at the adjacent home center was doing walk-up business.
Nevertheless, retailers and mall operator C.J. Segerstrom & Sons remain optimistic about the home center’s prospects, taking a wait-until-next-year attitude.
After 12 years at South Coast Plaza, Scandia Down moved its upscale specialty-bedding store across Bear Street about a month ago.
“The Segerstroms wanted us to move here because they say all home stores are going to be on this side so it will be a fabulous location,” said General Manager Marcia Wood.
But Wood added that the store’s traffic has been slower.
“We don’t have as much traffic as the previous location,” she said.
“If they don’t have traffic now, in the middle of the Christmas rush, it’s not going to happen before Christmas,” said retail leasing expert Greg Stoffel of Irvine-based Stoffel & Associates. “The week before Christmas might get incrementally more traffic, but the repositioning of that portion of South Coast Plaza as a home furnishings center sets the type of traffic they are going to have in cement.”
Stoffel added that home furnishings-oriented centers typically do not have high traffic and that they are a specific shopping destination, a separate trip from typical apparel shopping. But the types of shopping trips that would be generated from the main portion of South Coast Plaza will provide some added exposure to the revamped center, he said.
Since it was built as Crystal Court in 1986, the center has plodded along in the shadows of the larger South Coast Plaza and, more recently, the flashier South Coast at Metro Pointe.
Although it is about a third of the size of South Coast Plaza, Crystal Court’s sales have been roughly a tenth of the older, more established regional center , about $100 million annually,and that was before recent vacancies. Three-year-old Metro Pointe soared to the $150 million level last year.
But this year, Segerstrom announced that it would reinvent the center with a new mix of tenants under the South Coast Plaza moniker. As part of South Coast Plaza’s $100 million makeover, the new home center will be joined to the main mall with a 611-foot long pedestrian bridge across Bear Street,the second bridge at South Coast Plaza. Stoffel says the original Bristol Street bridge has little traffic.
Some of the new stores at the home center, such as Privilege, moved when their leases expired at South Coast Plaza.
“When reviewing the leasing plans, some tenants have asked to be over there because of the newness, and if an opportunity makes sense South Coast Plaza may suggest they go there,” said Debra Gunn Downing, marketing director at South Coast Plaza.
Others, such as Crate & Barrel, needed more space to expand their merchandise offerings. The Nov. 4 opening of the new 42,000-square-foot Crate & Barrel Home Store at the new center was something of a watershed for the center- breathing new life into its hallways. The company also continues to operate its smaller original store in South Coast Plaza through the holiday season.
Newcomers such as Borders Books & Music, which debuted Nov. 26, have faith that the new center will thrive on its own. The book and music store is mailing coupons to residents in a seven-mile radius, but hasn’t raised its sign on the street and it doesn’t expect to kick off its event calendar until January. The 26,000-square-foot store faces Crate & Barrel, but it’s also adjacent to two large vacant spaces where Pottery Barn and Eddie Bauer are scheduled to open in the spring.
“We’ve been doing fine,” said Mike Gibb, Borders’ community relations coordinator. “As word gets out we expect it to increase. In terms of pulling people into this mall, we expect that this store will do its share,if not more.”
Ken Gould, senior vice president, Lee & Associates, Newport Beach, says foot traffic has grown since the opening of Crate & Barrel and Borders and he expects it will continue to grow with new store openings.
Although most retailers agree that the Thanksgiving weekend was busy, there remains some uncertainty among retailers as many vacancies remain and there are few places for shoppers to eat. One of the few hot spots is Ruby’s, a 1950s-style diner that is one of its company’s top performers. Overall, retailers say foot traffic is slow but steady.
The mall’s eventual transformation into a destination home retail center is expected to eventually boost the center’s sales. But some retailers here are not likely to get the holiday season spike that other centers experience.
Although traffic reached nearly 200,000 people on the day after Thanksgiving, the number of shoppers traveling to the mall north of Bear Street considerably lags the crunch at the main shopping center.
But most retailers say they are optimistic that the scheduled July opening of the Bridge of Gardens that links the two centers will make a real difference. Plans are to build a garden at each end featuring caf & #233;s and restaurants.
“There have been a couple of very slow days,” said Jennifer Keegan, store manager of Gazoontite.com, which opened a month ago.
“When they finish the bridge it will help a lot,” she added. n
Roger Bloom contributed to this report.
