Montclair Place to add music venue

The Canyon, expected to open early next year on mall’s upper level, could be what lifts the 50-year-old retail venue out of its doldrums.

Officials at Montclair Place are pulling out all of the stops in their effort to make the shopping mall the destination location it once was.

In April, work crews began demolishing the former Broadway building on the east end of the property to make room for a 12-screen AMC Dine-In Theatre and approximately 64,000 square feet of restaurants and entertainment-themed attractions.

All of that will be housed in a 134,000-square-foot, two-story building under construction on the former Broadway site.

That will be a major transformation for a property that has struggled to remain competitive during the past decade or so, but it turned out to be only a first step in the property’s planned revitalization.

Now the mall’s owner, CIM Group in Los Angeles, has announced it’s bringing a major music and entertainment venue, The Canyon, to the 1.2 million square retail operation next to Interstate 10.

Expected to open during the first quarter of 2019, the venue will cover 17,500 square feet and seat about 1,500 people. It will be located on the second level where the food court used to be, said Edward Starr, Montclair’s city manager.

The Canyon operates two locations, one in Agoura Hills and the other in Santa Clarita. Smokey Robinson, Ray Davies, Kenny Loggins and the Stone Temple Pilots are among the acts that have played those venues.

It also operates the The Rose in Pasadena, the Libbey Bowl in Ojai and The Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills.

Other tenants headed to Montclair Place are a 15,000-square-foot Forever 21, an 11,000-square-foot Kids Empire indoor playground; the first Doner & Gyros restaurant in the United States and a customer service center operated by Spectrum, the cable television and internet service provider.

Combined, the five new tenants will cover about 48,000 square feet, according to CIM Group.

Company officials did not return calls seeking further comment.

One of California’s most successful chain of entertainment venues, The Canyon probably has the most potential to help transform Montclair Place into what its owners and the city of Montclair want it to be: A thriving, entertainment-themed retail operation that can compete with Ontario Mills, Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga and The Shoppes at Chino Hills.

“We feel like it’s going to be a great addition to the property,” Starr said. “CIM Group has been very aggressive in going after [prospective] tenants. They reached out to CIM Group and were able to put a deal together.”

When it opened in 1968, Montclair Place – then called Montclair Plaza – was a single-level mall whose main competition was the Pomona Mall, an outdoor facility past its peak, and Eastland Shopping Center in West Covina, also an outdoor operation but one that was performing well as the time.

Soon after it opened, Montclair Place became a premiere retail destination, drawing shoppers from the Inland Empire and the San Gabriel Valley. A  second level was added in 1987, and the mall underwent a major renovation in 2008.

CIM Group bought the property 10 years ago, reportedly for $170 million. By then, Montclair Place was under assault from Ontario Mills and Victoria Gardens, both entertainment-oriented venues, which opened in 1996 and 2004 respectively.

Today, like most traditional shopping malls, Montclair Place is battling online shopping as much, or more, than it is battling other brick-and-mortar malls. E-commerce sales in the United States last year were $453.5 billion, a year-over-year increase of approximately 16 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Nearly nine percent of all retail sales last year were e-commerce transactions, an increase of one percent from 2016, the commerce department reported.

In today’s retail environment, malls like Montclair Place have to take almost any tenants they can get, said Rick Lazar, senior vice president with Coldwell Banker Commercial Redlands.

“The Canyon is a great venue, but the important thing is they found something that can fill that space.” Lazar said. “More malls are signing discount tenants just so space doesn’t sit vacant. That’s a challenge, because discount doesn’t always fit in with other retail. But you have to at least look at it because that’s what’s out there.”

With some help from the property’s strongest anchor tenant, The Canyon might ultimately return Montclair Place to it former glory, said Nelson Wheeler, a partner with Strategic Retail Advisors in Newport Beach.

“They already have Nordstrom, and now they’re going to add a venue that will draw a younger demographic from outside the Inland Empire,” Wheeler said. “That’s smart.”

Any struggling mall can reach a point where it can’t be saved – Carousel Mall in San Bernardino, for example – but there’s no reason to give up on Montclair Place, Wheeler said.

“It’s still an ‘A’ location in a strong market with a good demographic,” Wheeler said. “There’s no reason why it can’t come back.”