Fashion Valley San Diego JCPenney to be booted for apartments

[ClownLoach]

The busiest, and arguably one of the best kept and operated JCPenney stores I have seen in SoCal is going to be booted from the Fashion Valley mall to build apartments, even though it is surrounded by delayed or canceled apartment projects. There is plenty of land adjacent to develop instead and a glut of units in the area. Mission Valley has started to become an undesirable place for renters due to the horrendous traffic caused by too many high density apartments.

I think this proves that Simon and Brookfield don't really care about JCPenney at all. They just bought it so that they can protect anchor agreement leases and then reuse the real estate at their convenience, not all that different from Sears and Fast Eddie.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/in-your-nei ... 379/?amp=1

[veteran+]

The busiest, and arguably one of the best kept and operated JCPenney stores I have seen in SoCal is going to be booted from the Fashion Valley mall to build apartments, even though it is surrounded by delayed or canceled apartment projects. There is plenty of land adjacent to develop instead and a glut of units in the area. Mission Valley has started to become an undesirable place for renters due to the horrendous traffic caused by too many high density apartments.

I think this proves that Simon and Brookfield don't really care about JCPenney at all. They just bought it so that they can protect anchor agreement leases and then reuse the real estate at their convenience, not all that different from Sears and Fast Eddie.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/in-your-nei ... 379/?amp=1

Wow, that is surprising. I have shopped that Penney's and it was indeed a really good store.

Yeah, I lived in Mission Valley for a bit at the Promenade at Rio Vista. Rents were getting so high as well as traffic. The apartment and condo density PLUS the number of malls (small and big) have caused all that.

Mission Valley is like the general area mall destination for all areas around it. Most everyone in neighborhoods around Balboa Park have to drive over the hill to shop at big box stores and chain stores and even movie theatres.

[rwsandiego]

The busiest, and arguably one of the best kept and operated JCPenney stores I have seen in SoCal is going to be booted from the Fashion Valley mall to build apartments, even though it is surrounded by delayed or canceled apartment projects. There is plenty of land adjacent to develop instead and a glut of units in the area. Mission Valley has started to become an undesirable place for renters due to the horrendous traffic caused by too many high density apartments.

I think this proves that Simon and Brookfield don't really care about JCPenney at all. They just bought it so that they can protect anchor agreement leases and then reuse the real estate at their convenience, not all that different from Sears and Fast Eddie.

https://www.nbcsandiego.com/in-your-nei ... 379/?amp=1

This does not surprise me one bit. Simon has been moving the FV store mix to more "upscale" stores for more than a decade. That's not to say I agree, though, because I don't. For one, it is one of the nicest JCP's I've ever shopped. Second, I think they will lose traffic at the mall. Third, more apartments! Yeah, San Diego has a housing shortage, but building for $3K/month apartments is not going to address the problem. This will turn Friars Road into even more of a nightmare than it is today, as it is the most direct route to Ralphs. I doubt the residents of FV are going to shop at Food 4 Less.

Apartments at UTC I get. Apartments at Mission Valley West I get. (But holy cow - the traffic!) Apartments at Mission Valley Center I could get. Apartments at FV - stupid.

[storewanderer]

How is the public transit in the FV area? Is the mall itself a hub?

The main mall in Reno also a Simon mall with JCP has a semi "hub" for the Reno bus system (which hardly anyone rides) and I've always thought it may be a good spot for apartments if any anchor spaces vacate. The parking lot would be an issue and I think a parking garage would need to be constructed if they went that route. The Reno mall has a height restriction and you can't build anything there that is taller than what is already there due to the airport flight path going over it.

If a public transit hub exists at a mall, adding apartments to a mall makes a lot of sense to me in some cases in a place where people may actually use the public transit (Reno isn't one of those places yet).

All anyone is doing to address housing shortages is build $3k/month luxury apartments. Thousands of new units in Reno on what was previously the old Macerich mall that got demolished - very low occupancy. Of course. Literal shit project- looks like housing projects (actually I've seen housing projects in Baltimore that look nicer- not sandwiched so close together).

[rwsandiego]

How is the public transit in the FV area? Is the mall itself a hub?...

The Fashion Valley Transit Center is located several hundred feet south of the JC Penney store on the grounds of FV. It is a stop on the San Diego Trolley (light rail) and a hub for several bus stops. While that might seem like an ideal place to locate apartment buildings the only grocery store accessible by transit is the Target at Mission Valley Center. One could walk across Camino de la Riena and west for a half mile to reach Trader Joe's, but they aren't going to do that. Plus, FV is situated between Friar's Road and the San Diego River. There is one (1) river crossing, which serves as an entrance to the mall. Whenever it rains, said entrance and the access road to where the apartments will be built floods out. You see, instead of constructing, oh what are those things called? You know, where the road crosses over a river on support beams? Oh, yeah! A bridge. Right. Yeah, so instead of building a bridge over the river they simply paved over the river and cut a tunnel for the water to pass through. I don't know what the apartment residents are going to do when the road floods. Oh, wait - I know what they will do! All of the residents will use the Friar's Road exit, causing even more traffic backups.

...
If a public transit hub exists at a mall, adding apartments to a mall makes a lot of sense to me in some cases in a place where people may actually use the public transit (Reno isn't one of those places yet)....

That's why Mission Valley Center would make sense for housing. The east end of the mall is moribund thanks to the May Co-turned-RobinsonsMay-turned-Macy's and the Saks-turned-Bed Bath and Beyond sit empty. It is also across the street from the shopping center that has several restaurants and a trolley station. Residents could walk to the opposite end of the mall to shop at Target and across the street to PetSmart. Mission Valley West (across Mission Center Drive from Mission Valley Center) also makes sense as mixed-use, given the Trader Joe's and several restaurants in the shopping center,

...All anyone is doing to address housing shortages is build $3k/month luxury apartments. Thousands of new units in Reno on what was previously the old Macerich mall that got demolished - very low occupancy. Of course. Literal shit project- looks like housing projects (actually I've seen housing projects in Baltimore that look nicer- not sandwiched so close together).

Same thing happens in Phoenix. The 32-story building across the street from mine was sloppily constructed. The apartment balconies have cool-looking glass partitions instead of the typical metal fencing. Sounds nice, right? One resident thought so until their partition came loose and fell to the alley below. No one was injured, thankfully. The same building has water features in some apartments courtesy of the water leaks that bubble up from the floor.

[storewanderer]

I do wonder however would apartments connected to a mall be more appealing than some of these freestanding type complexes? There are a lot of developers out there pushing this work-live-play concept. All in one place- no car needed. I don't really jive with this idea. But if you look at how a lot of college campuses have evolved in the past 10-20 years they have designed this type of study-live-work-play model even to what were previously "commuter colleges" so what I am wondering is if there is a future group of younger people out there who will like these types of developments with what I consider to be overpriced and poor quality apartments but the ability to "work and play" on site and not have to drive a car. I don't know the answer to any of this, but clearly a lot of investors, lenders, and developers are betting on this playing out like this...

As far as the entry situation to enter the mall going I wonder if the city needs to condition construction of the apartments on the developer paying for an actual bridge- that seems like it would be reasonable.

They've built tons of apartments in Reno and there are some major construction issues along the way. One large project that feels like it has been under construction for 3 years (almost done now- actually looks kind of nice in my opinion, better than a number of others that have been built) reportedly built the buildings with mismeasured windows and doors and had to re-do all that, then they also ran into funding issues in the middle of construction (can't imagine why...).

[ClownLoach]

San Diego does not have a real housing shortage, they have the worst short term rental issue in the country and do nothing about it.

Their rules state nobody can operate more than one, but they have people who buy entire reasonably affordable apartment complexes and issue eviction notices to every unit, hundreds of them, and the evicted tenants find their apartment is listed on Airbnb before they even get the paperwork. They have a scam going where anyone can be listed as the "manager" as a workaround. There were Craigslist ads going around literally offering cash to anyone who would sign the paperwork attesting they were the manager of a unit. They know it and they don't care because the ownership churn and artificial shortage keeps values going up, and in turn property taxes high.

They have a real hotel shortage, but the use of private residences as a substitute is just putting people on the streets.

If they get rid of every Airbnb they will have plenty of housing.

And the costs down there are so insane that nobody will start construction on anything with an expected rent less than $4K per unit or more now. That isn't going to fix any of the problems.

[buckguy]

The idea of mixing building types is nothing new and probably more promising than a lot of other efforts to redevelop malls. Lifestyle centers mix housing and retail and seem to do fine. urban neighborhoods have been mixed like this forever. The earliest large shopping centers were designed to function as community centers with housing offices, etc. The housing was typically separate, but close enough to be well integrated. Montgomery County, Maryland, outside of DC has several areas that were developed like this more recently on different scales---the largest is Kentlands which surrounds a large shopping complex with townhouses.

It's odd that Simon, which has an ownership stake, would boot out a JCP, but they've pushed them out of upscale malls before.

[veteran+]

How is the public transit in the FV area? Is the mall itself a hub?...

The Fashion Valley Transit Center is located several hundred feet south of the JC Penney store on the grounds of FV. It is a stop on the San Diego Trolley (light rail) and a hub for several bus stops. While that might seem like an ideal place to locate apartment buildings the only grocery store accessible by transit is the Target at Mission Valley Center. One could walk across Camino de la Riena and west for a half mile to reach Trader Joe's, but they aren't going to do that. Plus, FV is situated between Friar's Road and the San Diego River. There is one (1) river crossing, which serves as an entrance to the mall. Whenever it rains, said entrance and the access road to where the apartments will be built floods out. You see, instead of constructing, oh what are those things called? You know, where the road crosses over a river on support beams? Oh, yeah! A bridge. Right. Yeah, so instead of building a bridge over the river they simply paved over the river and cut a tunnel for the water to pass through. I don't know what the apartment residents are going to do when the road floods. Oh, wait - I know what they will do! All of the residents will use the Friar's Road exit, causing even more traffic backups.

...
If a public transit hub exists at a mall, adding apartments to a mall makes a lot of sense to me in some cases in a place where people may actually use the public transit (Reno isn't one of those places yet)....

That's why Mission Valley Center would make sense for housing. The east end of the mall is moribund thanks to the May Co-turned-RobinsonsMay-turned-Macy's and the Saks-turned-Bed Bath and Beyond sit empty. It is also across the street from the shopping center that has several restaurants and a trolley station. Residents could walk to the opposite end of the mall to shop at Target and across the street to PetSmart. Mission Valley West (across Mission Center Drive from Mission Valley Center) also makes sense as mixed-use, given the Trader Joe's and several restaurants in the shopping center,

...All anyone is doing to address housing shortages is build $3k/month luxury apartments. Thousands of new units in Reno on what was previously the old Macerich mall that got demolished - very low occupancy. Of course. Literal shit project- looks like housing projects (actually I've seen housing projects in Baltimore that look nicer- not sandwiched so close together).

Same thing happens in Phoenix. The 32-story building across the street from mine was sloppily constructed. The apartment balconies have cool-looking glass partitions instead of the typical metal fencing. Sounds nice, right? One resident thought so until their partition came loose and fell to the alley below. No one was injured, thankfully. The same building has water features in some apartments courtesy of the water leaks that bubble up from the floor.

All my observations and experiences as well. Spot on!

At the Promenade I was often boxed in during flooding and forced to face the cluster fxxx of traffic on the other side. Why the heck they did not build overpasses over the river is inane!

BTW.......................that trolley line has a stop at The Promenade...........................total nightmare with homeless folks wandering around the property.

Side note: the Promenade's name is because of the first level's use (coming from the trolley station stop) was originally occupied by a whole bunch of retail outfits. Restaurants, drycleaners, barber, hair salon, pet groomer and more.

[rwsandiego]

...All my observations and experiences as well. Spot on!...

Thanks.

...At the Promenade I was often boxed in during flooding and forced to face the cluster fxxx of traffic on the other side. Why the heck they did not build overpasses over the river is inane!

BTW.......................that trolley line has a stop at The Promenade...........................total nightmare with homeless folks wandering around the property.

Side note: the Promenade's name is because of the first level's use (coming from the trolley station stop) was originally occupied by a whole bunch of retail outfits. Restaurants, drycleaners, barber, hair salon, pet groomer and more.

Oh, yes - The Promenade. I tried to eat there once, but the parking was terrible and I left. For 13 of the 16 years I lived in San Diego I was in Normal Heights, just up Texas Street and east on Meade. Can't tell you how many times they would close Texas Street at Madison because the street was flooded at the bottom of the hill.

Mission Valley was where I shopped (Target, PetSmart, Trader Joe's, occasionally Ralphs, Costco, Lowe's, IKEA...). Camino de la Riena wasn't too bad, but Friar's Road! And that exit from I-8 to Mission Center! A friend lived north of Fenton Marketplace and said he felt cut off from civilization during football games.

For those who don't know, Fenton Marketplace has a Costco, IKEA, and a Lowes as well as several small stores and restaurants and a library. Technically, it has a trolley stop, but it really isn't that close to the stores. Also, Qualcomm Stadium was next to Fenton. When there was an event at Qualcomm on a Saturday you didn't even try to shop there, unless you loved sitting in traffic and driving round to find parking.