RETAIL
The interior space at the former Laguna Hills Mall will close on Dec. 31, according to the property’s owner, Merlone Geier Partners.
The move comes as Merlone Geier is prepping redevelopment plans for the center, now called Five Lagunas, which it bought in 2013 for a reported $110 million. The mall has suffered for years from a lack of tenants and customer traffic.
The developer slowed down its redevelopment timeline earlier this year after learning of the closure of the Macy’s store there. A J.C. Penney closed this year, and a Sears once at the property is no longer there.
A mixed-use redevelopment is expected for the 68-acre site, which a decade ago ran about 850,000 square feet.
“The closure of the three former department stores offers a unique opportunity to reimagine the entire property, which will offer a comprehensive array of shopping, dining, entertainment and living options,” Merlone Geier said in a statement, first reported by the Orange County Register.
Restaurants and a few other tenants facing outside the mall and surrounding it will remain open, the company said.
See more on the project’s development as part of our 2019 Economic Preview coverage for retail, on page 10.
HEALTHCARE
Shares of Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: SPPI) plummeted 37% to a nearly $700 million market cap last Thursday after the drugmaker announced that one of its drugs, poziotinib, did not get Food and Drug Administration’s designation as a “breakthrough therapy.”
Poziotinib is designed to treat certain types of lung cancer.
The company said its overall development plan and timeline for drug approval remains unchanged.
The drugmaker is based in Nevada, but has a large operational and R&D facility in Irvine.
LEGAL
Los Angeles-based boutique law firm Sklar Kirsh LLP opened an office in the Irvine Spectrum, its fourth location.
Jeffery Richbourg, a recent addition to the firm “with a deep specialty in executing high stakes mergers and acquisitions,” will join colleague Adrian Boddie, who practices in the firm’s real estate group, it said.
Sklar focuses on corporate, real estate and entertainment law, as well as commercial and entertainment litigation.
TECHNOLOGY
Irvine’s CoreLogic Inc., a provider of property information, insight, analytics and data-enabled products and software, intends to exit its loan origination software unit and its remaining legacy default management related platforms over the next two years.
Those divisions generated about $40 million in revenue during the first nine months of the year.
Last week, CoreLogic also announced plans to accelerate a previously announced multiyear program to improve its appraisal management business, “through the greater use of data-driven analytics, automation of workflows and enhanced utilization of its dedicated staff appraisers.”
That appraisal management unit brought in nearly $65 million in revenues during the first nine months of the year.
CoreLogic is valued at about $2.8 billion.
