Work is under way on the construction of two new restaurants at Stoneridge Shopping Center, even though financial problems with Mills Corporation, the owner of Stoneridge, appears to have slowed the rebuilding of Nordstrom Department Store and an adjacent parking garage.
At the same time, Broyhill Home Collections, which was scheduled to move into a new structure on the site of the old Galaxy movie theater that was torn down in the Rose Pavilion to accommodate the furniture retailer, also is faced with financial concerns and has been closing stores.
Meanwhile, the gleaming yellow 28,500-square-foot store built on top of Galaxy foundation, stands empty, a setback for New York-based New Plan Excel Trust, Inc., which had long been trying to fill the closed-Galaxy site.
Recently, top executives at both Mills and Broyhill stepped down because of falling earnings.
Part of the Stoneridge mall’s parking lot on the west side of Macy’s Women’s Store has now been blocked off as construction begins on a new Cheesecake Factory, a popular restaurant chain found in upscale shopping centers and business districts. This will be Cheesecake Factory’s first Tri-Valley location.
Marion Pavan, Pleasanton’s associate planner, said a second restaurant is planned for a site next to Cheesecake Factory by P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. Founded in 1993, P.F. Chang’s offers a unique combination of Chinese specialties and custom sauces for both for lunch and dinner.
On the other side of the mall, Nordstrom was scheduled to start building a new department store right after the holiday sales season ended in early January. Pavan said that although plans for the 144,000-square-foot store are still active, building permits have yet to be issued for the project.
Along with the new store, Mills Corporation, which owns a controlling interest in the Stoneridge center, was planning a multi-story, 900-car parking garage on Stoneridge Mall Road next to the new Nordstrom. Once the new Nordstrom is opened, Mills also planned to retrofit the old structure into two levels of new mall stores, with a 66,137-square-foot, multi-screen movie theater complex on what is now Nordstrom’s third level, with 3,000 seats.
“As far as I know, those are still the plans for the shopping center,” Pavan said.
However, Mills, based in Arlington, Va. just outside of Washington, D.C., is faced with financial difficulties. The developer, owner and manager of a diversified global portfolio of retail destinations, such as Stoneridge Shopping Center, has been searching for investors or even buyers as it seeks to satisfy investor demands for greater shareholder value by conserving cash and reducing debt.
Mills also has undergone major management changes and formed a Special Negotiating Committee to manage its board of director’s strategic alternatives process.
Mills decline has been fast and furious, with the real estate investment trust planning and opening new retail centers around the country. Mills took on projects in Singapore, Madrid and Scotland in an effort to become a global real estate investment firm, but soon couldn’t meet its soaring debt obligations. Most recently, it delayed its multi-million-dollar massive Meadowlands Xanadu project in New Jersey, although it recently received $1.91 billion of a $2.23 billion financing packages from Goldman, Sachs Mortgage Company that may help jump-start that development.
Although the company has rejected press inquiries, a spokesman who asked not to be identified said that Pleasanton’s Stoneridge Shopping Center was not among a number of “poor-performing malls” that Mills may be jettison.
Last May, Chairman Frank Lowry of Australian-owned Westfield, a global developer of retail centers, confirmed that his company “is running the ruler” over the Mills Corporation, which is valued at $1.8 billion in U.S. dollars.
As for Broyhill, the company’s Furniture Brands parent has been closing plants and merging back-office function at its St. Louis headquarters. Last month, the company announced that a Broyhill wood furniture plant in Lenoir, N.C. would shut down.
Furniture Brands also makes Drexel Heritage, Henredon, Maitland-Smith and Thomasville brands, which, like Broyhill, generally have their own stand-alone stores.
