Expect to see demolition work begin soon at the shuttered Westminster Mall, as Irvine’s Shopoff Realty Investments is said to have closed on the last big piece of the 50+ year old property along the San Diego (405) freeway.
A deal between Shopoff Realty Investments and former mall owner Washington Prime Group is said to have been recently completed for a large chunk of the nearly 100-acre mall property; term of the transaction haven’t been disclosed yet.
Shopoff Realty Investments had already paid about $95 million in 2022 for a 26-acre portion of the mall, which included the former Macy’s and Sears spaces, and an adjacent parking lot.
The local developer, led by Bill Shopoff, envisions building 2,250 homes along with other uses at its project, dubbed Bolsa Pacific. It is set to be the company’s largest-ever project in OC.
The recent sale and impending demolition work should help resolve reports of vandalism, trespassing and other crime taking place at the abandoned mall since its closure in October.
Is South Coast Plaza facing the loss of another department store anchor?
Saks Global, parent of Saks Fifth Avenue, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 14, listing nearly $2.5 billion in debt.
A restructuring of its leases and shrinking of its real estate portfolio is expected; the company said last week it would work with A&G Real Estate Partners to get out of leases and dispose of excess property.
A report last month in fashion trade publication Women’s Wear Daily, prior to the bankruptcy filing, cited the Saks location in Costa Mesa as one of about a dozen “weaker locations” that were in jeopardy of being closed.
The SCP location, near the Macy’s Men’s Store, runs about 103,000 sq. ft., according to CoStar records.
A SCP spokesperson said it doesn’t comment on behalf of its retailers.
The upscale mall’s last big anchor to close was Sears, in 2019. That spot remains shuttered.
OC’s Brian Niccol is beginning to see results in his turnaround plan for Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX).
The coffee chain giant last week reported its first quarterly growth in same-store sales (4%) in two years, amid the “Back to Starbucks” turnaround strategy announced by Niccol after his hiring in late 2024.
“In fiscal 2026, we’re going to be shifting to play offense and to innovate,” Niccol said last week. “This is really just the beginning.”
The former Chipotle CEO, who still lives in Newport Beach, earned about $31 million last year. Regulatory filings last week indicated that Starbucks scrapped a $250,000 cap on private airplane use for Niccol, who often commutes to Seattle on a company jet for work, due to security concerns.
The country’s largest reported Costco development to date is taking place in LA County’s Baldwin Hills, where an estimated $425 million mixed-use project is set to include over 800 apartments alongside a new warehouse for shoppers.
Brea’s new Costco, planned at the site of the city’s Beckman Coulter campus, could see a similar price tag, when factoring in the just-completed $140 million land deal, $106 million development cost for the warehouse, and a housing project overseen by Lennar. See Joseph Pimentel’s front-page story for more.
