Thursday, February 16, 2006
Triangle Square - Redevelopment Turned Rancid
I found myself at Triangle Square this week, catching a
movie, so I took the opportunity to wander around that shopping
center to check out it's current condition. Talk about a sad and
depressing experience! If you enjoy visiting ghost towns like
Bodie, up in the Sierras, or Rhyolite, out near Death Valley,
you'll feel right at home at Triangle Square. The few businesses
that remain seem to be barely hanging on. There's enough white
paper covering the windows of the empty business locations to
decimate a small forest.
No longer is there the spirit of fun and excitement on the plaza. No longer are there shoppers strolling from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant. There is no vitality at the mall - no promise of things to come as there was when it first opened nearly two decades ago. If you don't like crowds, Triangle Square is the place for you.
The anchor tenants, Virgin Megastore, NikeTown and Barnes & Noble Booksellers have all departed, citing the mall's inability to attract sufficient traffic to support their presence. North Face, long gone from it's difficult-to-reach location on an outside corner with no parking access, was among the first "name" retailers to pull up stakes. The basement - site of a couple failed markets - sits empty, like a medieval dungeon.
Triangle Square is a failure in many ways. It's a failure of the redevelopment process - which claimed the land via eminent domain and ousted long-time, thriving businesses. It's the failure of a series of owners who obviously lacked the vision and/or interest to find a theme on which to build a successful venture. It's the exception which proves the old real estate axiom - location, location, location. With more than 100,000 vehicles passing that location every day - including those regurgitated from the terminus of the 55 Freeway on their way to the beach - attracting customers should not be a problem.
This location could - and should - be the gateway to a reinvigorated Westside, the plans for which are rapidly making their way through the government process. I fear, however, that our myopic City Council lacks the wisdom, vision and motivation to provide guidance and incentives to the ownership of Triangle Square so they will participate in the Westside renaissance. The closest thing to "guidance" I've seen from them was Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever's not-too-veiled threat to reclaim the center as an "under performing asset" via eminent domain. Beyond that, I've neither heard nor seen any positive recommendations from anyone on the council about Triangle Square.
The problems with this mall are numerous. In no particular order, here are just a few:
1 - The structure itself, while unique, doesn't lend itself to casual shopping. Potential customers of the stores along the exterior streets must find their way from the bowels of the parking structure - usually a hike, because the elevators are difficult to find - then trek along three of the busiest streets in Orange County before arriving at their destination.
2 - Those wonderful, cooling onshore breezes for which we are always grateful seem to accelerate up Newport Boulevard and make the plaza area of the mall a cold and windy place except on those few days when Santa Ana winds prevail. Back in happier times, when music groups frequently played, it was hard to get comfortable sitting and listening with your teeth chattering like maracas!
3 - The dark, uninviting lower level parking has frightened off many a female shopper. As mentioned above, a couple markets have failed in the basement primarily because women just couldn't get comfortable with the dark, dank surroundings.
Beyond those infrastructure difficulties, the aforementioned lack of vision will continue to haunt the mall and contribute to the failure of future businesses. Someone needs to decide what Triangle Square will be - beyond an object lesson of the failure of redevelopment in our city, that is. Until that happens, this city will continue to be be burdened by this example of failed municipal vision and the voters should be, necessarily, apprehensive about the future of broader redevelopment plans for the Westside.
Here's a thought to chew on... perhaps someone like Shaheen Sadeghi - the visionary behind The Camp and The Lab and a major contributor to the current SoBECA plan for Bristol Street - could be enticed to consult for the ownership of Triangle Square. It may take a man who is obviously willing to think in non-traditional terms - "outside the box", as it were - to provide some leadership for the salvation of this municipal white elephant. He may be just what the doctor ordered - a man of creativity and vision with the guts to take those defibrillation paddles in hand and jolt the failing heart of the Westside back to life.
1:20 pm pst
No longer is there the spirit of fun and excitement on the plaza. No longer are there shoppers strolling from shop to shop, restaurant to restaurant. There is no vitality at the mall - no promise of things to come as there was when it first opened nearly two decades ago. If you don't like crowds, Triangle Square is the place for you.
The anchor tenants, Virgin Megastore, NikeTown and Barnes & Noble Booksellers have all departed, citing the mall's inability to attract sufficient traffic to support their presence. North Face, long gone from it's difficult-to-reach location on an outside corner with no parking access, was among the first "name" retailers to pull up stakes. The basement - site of a couple failed markets - sits empty, like a medieval dungeon.
Triangle Square is a failure in many ways. It's a failure of the redevelopment process - which claimed the land via eminent domain and ousted long-time, thriving businesses. It's the failure of a series of owners who obviously lacked the vision and/or interest to find a theme on which to build a successful venture. It's the exception which proves the old real estate axiom - location, location, location. With more than 100,000 vehicles passing that location every day - including those regurgitated from the terminus of the 55 Freeway on their way to the beach - attracting customers should not be a problem.
This location could - and should - be the gateway to a reinvigorated Westside, the plans for which are rapidly making their way through the government process. I fear, however, that our myopic City Council lacks the wisdom, vision and motivation to provide guidance and incentives to the ownership of Triangle Square so they will participate in the Westside renaissance. The closest thing to "guidance" I've seen from them was Mayor Pro Tem Eric Bever's not-too-veiled threat to reclaim the center as an "under performing asset" via eminent domain. Beyond that, I've neither heard nor seen any positive recommendations from anyone on the council about Triangle Square.
The problems with this mall are numerous. In no particular order, here are just a few:
1 - The structure itself, while unique, doesn't lend itself to casual shopping. Potential customers of the stores along the exterior streets must find their way from the bowels of the parking structure - usually a hike, because the elevators are difficult to find - then trek along three of the busiest streets in Orange County before arriving at their destination.
2 - Those wonderful, cooling onshore breezes for which we are always grateful seem to accelerate up Newport Boulevard and make the plaza area of the mall a cold and windy place except on those few days when Santa Ana winds prevail. Back in happier times, when music groups frequently played, it was hard to get comfortable sitting and listening with your teeth chattering like maracas!
3 - The dark, uninviting lower level parking has frightened off many a female shopper. As mentioned above, a couple markets have failed in the basement primarily because women just couldn't get comfortable with the dark, dank surroundings.
Beyond those infrastructure difficulties, the aforementioned lack of vision will continue to haunt the mall and contribute to the failure of future businesses. Someone needs to decide what Triangle Square will be - beyond an object lesson of the failure of redevelopment in our city, that is. Until that happens, this city will continue to be be burdened by this example of failed municipal vision and the voters should be, necessarily, apprehensive about the future of broader redevelopment plans for the Westside.
Here's a thought to chew on... perhaps someone like Shaheen Sadeghi - the visionary behind The Camp and The Lab and a major contributor to the current SoBECA plan for Bristol Street - could be enticed to consult for the ownership of Triangle Square. It may take a man who is obviously willing to think in non-traditional terms - "outside the box", as it were - to provide some leadership for the salvation of this municipal white elephant. He may be just what the doctor ordered - a man of creativity and vision with the guts to take those defibrillation paddles in hand and jolt the failing heart of the Westside back to life.
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