by Garth Meyer
They search for financing around the world. Their home offices are in Paris and London. The project is on the corner of Artesia and Hawthorne Boulevard.
The South Bay Social District, intended to remake the South Bay Galleria, has advanced to another stage, with resumed plans for 650 apartments, now in the hands of the city planning commission to rule on the new proposal this spring.
Stuart Miller, L Catterton project partner, spoke at a joint District 3 and 4 community meeting March 30 on the top floor of the Galleria.
No date has been set for construction.
“No date yet, nor are we able to give timing on that,” Miller said to a crowd of about 60 people in the mall’s Community Room. “Thank you for your interest, and your patience more than anything.”
He has worked on the South Bay Social District project for 10 years.
Construction appeared imminent pre-pandemic, for the mixed-use redevelopment, but since then, inflation rose, followed by interest rates, and financiers started to prefer housing over retail/commercial space.
So L Catterton made the Redondo Beach venture smaller, Miller told the crowd, and more outdoor, and they gained more interest from financiers.
A lease has been signed for 20,000 square feet in the old Nordstrom store – now World of Dinosaurs – by Industrious, a company which offers co-working office space.
“Industrious at Redondo Beach at 1815 Hawthorne Boulevard, third floor, opening spring 2026,” the firm advertises on its website. “Perfect for solopreneurs and small to midsize teams…”
Change in plans
The original South Bay Social District proposal in 2014 had 650 residential units, later pared down to 300. Now, it is back up to 650 in L Catterton’s February application to the city.
The added units would be built in the Galleria’s southwest parking lot, behind Kohl’s on Kingsdale Avenue.
The Social District would also include a redesign of the interior of the current mall, for which pre–leasing is underway. Much of today’s Galleria will remain intact, with a final mix of office and retail, and the building’s “doors taken out” to make for an indoor/outdoor experience.
“Like a covered street, a walkable neighborhood. If there’s a breeze outside, there’s a breeze inside,” Miller said.
The project is fully designed, with a city-approved environmental impact report from 2019 still current.
“We could start before the end of the year,” Miller said, if financing came through today. “We have a general contractor on board and pre-leasing is going well.”
Of the proposed apartments, 10-20 percent are slated as affordable, and a priority given to Redondo Beach city and school district workers.
Previously, Social District plans brought concerns that it would put a strain on local schools, bringing more students to crowded classrooms. Today, post-pandemic, the concern has eased to moreso the opposite. Enrollments are declining across Los Angeles County, with Redondo Unified planning for ½% decrease each year.
Questions asked of Miller at last Saturday’s gathering included one about taking out air-conditioning in the current mall building.
In the indoor-outdoor concept, store spaces would still have heating and air.
“What tenants is the mall part expected to attract?” another resident asked.
Miller said clothes, at the moment, and “as we re-tenant, 20-25% will be food, food services; a small grocer; coffee…”
For clothing stores, he mentioned Anthropologie or higher-level retailers like it.
In its heyday, from the ‘80s to early 2000s, the South Bay Galleria accounted for 40 percent of Redondo Beach sales tax revenue.
Further questions
The financing L Catterton now seeks is for the whole South Bay Social District project at once.
Phase One would be built first: the redesign of the existing mall, 300 apartments and a town square park. The new application for 350 more apartments is part of a future phase.
Miller noted that, a year and a half ago, at the start of seeking financing, potential investors asked for only cost estimates; then they required a preferred general contractor with full cost projections, and more housing.
A resident asked if the Galleria could end up becoming something else entirely.
“If an Amazon warehouse is the best we can do, after all of this, it would be sad,” she said.
The South Bay Social District’s environmental impact report includes the full 650 apartments.
The Redondo Beach city housing element, a state-required, 10-year listing of where future housing may be built, includes the 350 extra units.
“How can the city help?” asked a woman in the crowd.
“The city, the city councilmembers, administrative staff; all have been fantastic,” Miller said. “At the moment, we just ask for your patience.”
The Social District plans also include, for a later phase, a 150-room boutique hotel.
“What in this area would encourage a hotel?” a man asked.
“This,” Miller said, gesturing to the 8’x 8’ South Bay Social District architectural model in the Community Room. He went on to say that L Catterton imagines a high-end hotel experience.
“Tomorrow is Easter,” said another questioner last Saturday morning. “What would we see here next Easter?”
Hopefully a construction site, Miller answered.
He added that the goal is the existing mall would stay open during all building phases.
Macy’s was originally going to move into the former Nordstrom’s, but they decided to stay in their spot – with 35 years to go on their lease.
L Catterton – “The World’s Leading Consumer Growth Investor” – is an American partner to LVMH (Louis Vuitton, Moet, Hennessey), a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate.
On Monday, L Catterton gave a statement to Easy Reader:
“The ownership acknowledges that the challenging macro environment over the last couple of years has slowed progress at the site,” it read, attributed to Miller, but that Phase One plans are “scheduled to commence within the next 12 months” [assuming financing].
On another matter, L Catterton last week sent the latest of a series of letters to Metro in support of the Hawthorne Boulevard option for the Green Line light rail extension.
Last June, at a Redondo Beach Roundtable lunch in the Community Room, project liaison Geoff Maleman estimated, as things stood then, construction would start in the first quarter of this year.
Pre-pandemic, the project was estimated to begin in 2019.
Doubt?
District Four City Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr., expressed some skepticism about the Social District in an interview Tuesday, after the community meeting.
“For the first time ever, I heard them say they did not have a start date,” said Obagi, who hosted the March 30 event with Paige Kaluderovic, District 5 city councilmember. “Before, they’d give a date, and it’d be, yeah, good luck, then they’d kick it out a year, kick it out a year…”
He wondered if the project may not get built and L Catterton will look to sell the property.
“If they were to sell it (though), that would require leaving a lot of money on the table. It’s a possibility, but not a probability,” he said.
“Given the history, the stops and starts, there can naturally be some doubts,” Kaluderovic said. “I am absolutely hopeful this can happen soon. I’d love for it to happen by the end of this year. The revitalizing would be an improvement to the community and to the safety of the whole area.”
The matter is now in front of financiers worldwide, and the Redondo Beach planning commission.
The South Bay Galleria remains open, with Macy’s, Kohl’s, AMC Theaters and 55 smaller stores. The mall began a particular decline after Nordstrom left in 2015 for Del Amo Mall.
“I think what the city can do is to make sure this all goes through our process as quickly as possible,” Kaluderovic said. ER
