Costa Mesa’s South Coast Collection is looking to a new look and lineup of stores to build a reputation as high-end center for home furnishings.
A handful of stores—including TPT Home, an offshoot of Utah home decor importer Tai-Pan Trading—have spent the past few weeks scrambling to ramp up operations in time for early holiday shopping at the 300,000 square foot center on Hyland Avenue near the San Diego (I-405) Freeway.
New York-based custom home furnishings retailer Stark also has signed on for 20,000 square feet of space.
Recent arrivals, including high-end fabric company Scalamandré, are finishing up interior work for their space and should open in the next month or so.
Other tenants expected soon include Fixtures Living, a high-end appliance store that allows buyers to try out products at its showroom. The San Diego-based company is expected to lease about 20,000 square feet of space and will have one of the spots facing the freeway, a key point of exposure for the center.
About half of the center now is leased, and a few larger deals are expected to be announced shortly, according to officials with Newport Beach’s Burnham USA, the center’s owner.
“Our goal is to get one or two more anchor tenants and then allow the center to mature,” said Stephen Thorp, executive vice president with Burnham USA, which bought the center for $35 million in early 2009 in a court-overseen sale.
The center previously was known as South Coast Home Furnishings Center and sold in late 2007 for close to $100 million. The prior owner, a Costa Mesa-based entity operating as South Coast Home Furnishings Center LLC, turned the keys over to its lenders after defaulting on an $84 million loan in late 2008.
The default came after the housing market turned, which led a number of existing furniture and other home retailers to close shop, driving up the mall’s vacancy levels.
Burnham USA, which owns about a dozen retail centers in Orange County, has put in some $5 million in remodeling work and upgrades to the property since its acquisition, said Thorp. He said the company wants to keep home furnishing retailers as the main attraction of its reworked center.
More of the original tenants are expected to leave under the plan, including a Linder’s Furniture that faces the freeway, Thorp said. Only a few of the original tenants, including upscale furniture store C.S. Wo & Sons, are expected to remain once the renovation is complete.
Burnham USA has spent the past year or so courting new tenants and getting out of leases with some existing tenants that didn’t fit its long-term vision as part of its bid for a higher-end lineup.
“We’re aiming to get tenants with a little more resiliency,” said Bryon Ward, a partner with Burnham USA and president of its Burnham Ward Properties affiliate.
Non-Furnishing Tenants
The plans also call for a few new wrinkles to the mall’s makeup, with leases of smaller spaces to non-furnishing tenants. Burnham USA landed a 15,000-square-foot Paul Mitchell cosmetology school for an open spot that faces Sunflower Avenue and is adding a cluster of smaller stores that cater to the wedding industry.
Also on the way is what Burnham calls the OC Mart Mix, a collection of smaller, niche stores operating under the same roof. The developer likens this part of the mall to San Francisco’s Ferry Building.
A few trendy restaurants also are in the mix as potential additions to the center, Ward said.
Changes to the architecture include larger store-front windows, higher ceilings and extensive landscaping work.
Drivers on the 405 will notice a re-vamped front to the center, including a flashy video screen that’s the only one of its type in Costa Mesa. Efforts to get similar screens installed at Triangle Square were thwarted because of local resident’s concerns.
South Coast Collection’s new owners also have put up more signs on local streets directing cars getting off the freeway to the center, which it is has nicknamed SOCO. Without directions the center can be a challenge to find for first-time visitors.
“We’re trying to make the first visit as easy as possible,” Thorp said.
