by Garth Meyer
City leaders gathered June 1 on the third floor of the South Bay Galleria, past Cinnabon and across from Champs Sports, for a Redondo Beach Roundtable featuring a presentation about the coming South Bay Social District.
Redevelopment plans have slowed, project community engagement liaison Geoff Maleman told the group, because of higher interest rates and hesitation in the lending industry after the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.
In the mall’s “Community Room,” standing next to an 8 X 8-foot, lighted project model, Maleman said that, even earlier, financing was tough – and to get tenants to sign more than letters of intent – because South Bay Social District was assumed to be just a mall remodeling.
All of this led to a new strategy; to seek construction money “with a piece of equity”; more than just traditional banks financing construction and receiving profit from interest.
“The delay in getting a shovel in the ground is just a victim of the current financial environment,” Maleman said. “A lot of lenders are in a freeze pattern.”
He emphasized that the South Bay Social District will be a lifestyle destination with restaurants, residential, office and a hotel, as well as retail.
“It’s a very special, unique animal,” he said. “I can’t think of anywhere in Southern California with all of these uses on the same site… We don’t need you to come here and shop [to be successful]. That’s not the only reason people will come here.”
If a lender materialized today, he told the 30 people at the Roundtable, “We would have a shovel in the ground in (two months).”
Maleman estimated, as things stand, construction will start in the first quarter of next year.
He told the assembled – including representatives of the city, Redondo Unified School District, Harbor Commission, Beach Cities Health District and more – that residential and redevelopment of the existing mall would happen first, to be finished by Christmas 2025, followed a year later by a planned hotel.
The project originated in 2014.
The first intention was for the Macy’s anchor to move to the former Nordstrom spot. Housing, office, retail and outdoor space were to be built where the original Macy’s building was.
“Then COVID hit and the economy changed. Retail is not what it used to be,” Maleman said. “But in a way, COVID was one of the best things to happen to us. It allowed us to reimagine. Prior to (the pandemic), the idea was to add more retail.”
At the same time, Macy’s corporate headquarters put a hold on real estate transactions, halting its plan at South Bay Galleria.
So Maleman and Galleria owners went back to the Redondo Beach planning commission to seek approval for a new plan.
Much of the intended retail area would remain a parking lot. Spaces within the existing mall that were going to be retail would become restaurant and office space. Total residential and hotel units stayed the same.
“A lot went on behind the scenes between 2019 and today,” Maleman said.
Macy’s will now stay in place, with the third floor given up for what Galleria owners hope to lease to “experiential retail,” such as an escape room or virtual reality space.
The old Nordstrom building is now leased to the educational theme park “Wonder of Dinosaurs.”
“The mall started to decline when Nordstrom left for Del Amo (in 2015),” Maleman said. “Hopefully this becomes a model of other adaptive re-use of malls around the country. We’re hopeful (South Bay Social District) kind of becomes its own ecosystem.”
A grocery store is being considered as a possible feature, while if it does not happen, Maleman pointed out that there are three grocery stores/sellers within walking distance.
He has worked on the project for the past nine years.
“I thought this was going to be a two-to-three year process,” Maleman said.
The public relations specialist lives in Redondo Beach, his second child graduating from RUHS Friday. Playa Vista was one of his first clients, followed by Westfield Culver City, and Manhattan Village.
The original South Bay Shopping Center opened in 1960 with a May Company department store (the Macy’s building) and 37 outdoor retailers. These were converted to the indoor South Bay Galleria in 1985. The AMC Theaters (originally General Cinemas) were added in 1997. ER
