2023 Spring Issue - 107

INFRASTRUCTURE
(30,000 sq m) of retail space but tore down the big
boxes to eventually make room for 2,300 units of
multifamily housing, 500 single-family residences,
and 1.5 million square feet (139,000 sq m) of office
space. The first 400 apartments are scheduled for
completion in late 2024. Eventually, Plano's new live/
work/play neighborhood will be home to 6,000 residents,
providing plenty of consumers near its retail
businesses.
Rethinking the Mall
In California, where malls proliferated in automobilecentered
suburbs, many are now undergoing major
transformations.
For some, residential infill is just the latest stage
of evolution. In Huntington Beach, for example,
an aging 1960s-vintage indoor mall initially was
remade as Bella Terra, an open-air town center
with Tuscan-inspired architecture and tenants such
as upscale grocer Whole Foods. Now, owners DJM
Capital Partners and PGIM, the real estate arm of
Prudential Financial, are planning to demolish a
building that once housed Burlington Coat Factory
to make way for a U-shaped complex that includes
a five-story, 300-unit residential portion atop 43,000
square feet (4,000 sq m) of new retail space on the
ground level.
" We reviewed many different options for Burlington
over the years, but given that big-box retailers are
downsizing today, replacing this massive retail box
with much-needed housing is the best fit for Bella
Terra and the community, " says Rob Grant, senior vice
president for investments at DJM.
Some conversions involve rethinking the very
concept of malls in an era when younger millennials
and members of generation Z seem increasingly disinclined
to drive.
" To sustain a mall into the next generation, it
should be embedded in a mix of activated, walkable
uses that include residential, " says Barry Hand, a
principal and studio director in the Dallas office of
global design firm Gensler. " Existing malls are somewhat
interior facing, surrounded by surface parking.
We are currently working on a significant conversion
of MainPlace Mall in Santa Ana, California, where the
design opens the mall in strategic areas and somewhat
blurs the line between interior/exterior from one
side of the mall to the other. "
Gensler's reimagining of MainPlace includes densifying
the perimeter with entertainment space, office
space, and multifamily housing that Hand envisions
bringing additional foot traffic to the retail portion
each day.
Not far away, Laguna Hills Mall, a 1970s-vintage
center situated near Interstate 5, is undergoing a
dramatic overhaul that involves demolishing the massive
mall building at the core and replacing it with
five multifamily residential buildings with 1,500 units,
a hotel, and green space. The 68-acre (28 ha) site
still has 250,000 square feet (23,000 m sq) of retail
space, including fitness facilities and a movie theater,
and 500,000 square feet (46,000 sq m) of office
space along the freeway. Rebranded as the Village at
Laguna Hills, the former mall will become a dense,
urban-style community with a walkable environment
and a mix of retailers catering to residents' needs,
says Scott McPherson, a managing partner at Merlone
Geier Partners, the real estate investment firm
undertaking the overhaul.
Sites of single-level shopping centers are also
being scraped so the land can be repurposed for
housing. In San José, developers Maracor and Pacific
West Communities have filed plans to tear down
Maplewood Plaza, a 23,800-square-foot (2,200 sq
m) shopping center, and replace it with a six-story,
260-unit apartment building that will include groundfloor
retail. " Sites like Maplewood Plaza sit on transit
corridors that have been upzoned for height and
density over the years, " says Brad Dickason, principal
at Maracor.
Living at the Mall
In its work on mall redevelopment, Seattle-based
architecture firm GGLO has focused on how to insert
residential space into the mall environment and
achieve a harmonious balance. One salient example
of GGLO's work is Avalon Alderwood Place, a
mixed-use 328-unit multifamily development
located on the former site of a Sears department
store at Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, Washington,
which it designed on behalf of development
partners AvalonBay Communities and Brookfield
Properties.
In contrast with declining malls that developers
can drastically overhaul, Alderwood is considered
fairly successful, says James Bradley, GGLO architect
and principal. " Most of our work was around how
do you create that sort of residential experience and
things that residents want [in order] to have that
sense of home-that sense of a residential place and
neighborhood-within the existing fabric of a fully
functioning mall? "
SPRING 2023
URBAN LAND
107
2023 Spring Issue

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 2023 Spring Issue
