San Bernardino still looking for a solution to Carousel Mall

Closed for good last year, the property will determine the future of downtown San Bernardino. The question is deciding what to do with it, and that’s going to take some time.

A little more than one year ago, Carousel Mall in San Bernardino ceased to be. After years of struggle the 45-year-old facility, now owned by the city of San Bernardino, was closed.

Today, city officials have made little progress in determining what will be built on the 45-acre site once the former mall is leveled. Whatever they decide will go a long way toward determining the future of downtown San Bernardino.

At the time, San Bernardino officials said they preferred bringing a combination of retail, residential and office development to the site, and that’s still the city’s priority, said Teri Ledoux, assistant city manager.

Since then they’ve received one formal proposal that was rejected for being unfeasible, and they’ve accepted none since then, said Steve Dukett, managing principal with Urban Futures Inc., a Tustin consulting firm.

“They’re basically where they were a year ago” said Dukett, whose company was hired by the city to help select a project for the Carousel Mall site. “It’s taking awhile for all of this to come together, but it will eventually.”

The overall plan announced one year ago remains in place.

Sell the Regal San Bernardino Stadium 14 & RPX and use the money from the sale to pay for the mall’s demolition, which is expected to cost between $10 million and $14 million, according to Dukett.

The theater, which is on the east end of the mall property, has been performed well since it opened. It will remain a theater as a condition of sale, Dukett said.

Demolition can’t be paid for until the theater is sold, but once that happens a development land might come together relatively quickly, Dukett said.

“The building is still there, and that limits what people can envision going on the site,” Dukett said. “Once you level it people can imagine what might be built there. But all you see now is a large boarded-up building.”

Carousel Mall opened in 1972 as Central City Mall. It was shut down with no fanfare in July of last year, when it was covered with plywood. A sign reading “permanently closed to public access” was placed on the main entrance.

It was a predictable end to the beleaguered property next to Interstate 215, which was down to 14 tenants – none of them anchors – when it closed.

Carousel Mall suffered a major hit in 1998, when Harris-Gottschalks closed. That store, originally the landmark Harris’ Department Store, was on the east end of the mall property and had been part of downtown for close to 100 years.

By 2003, the mall had lost its three anchor tenants – Harris-Gottschalks, Montgomery Ward and JCPenney, – none of which was replaced. It also became a gathering place for gang members,  and was also hurt by the advent of online shopping, something all regional shopping malls have had to deal with.

Closing the property ended more than 25 years of multiple ownership, false starts and plans that failed to make the mall competitive again.

The most recent – leasing parts of the mall to office tenants – didn’t generate enough foot traffic to help the retailers that were left, and the project was eventually abandoned.

Before that there was a proposal to remove the roof and remake it into something similar to Riverside Plaza, which underwent a similar refurbishment. That was never tried, nor was filling the mall with international tenants.

While those battles were fought, retail tenants and shoppers were taking their business across town, to Inland Center Mall, which over time became the city’s top shopping destination.

Later, Carousel Mall – which was renamed after a children’s carousel was installed on its lower level – faced more competition from Ontario Mills and Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga and the Chino Spectrum Town Center.

Ultimately, San Bernardino officials want a mixed-use project next door to a thriving theater district, according to LeDoux.

“We have to make this work, and whatever we do it has to get people to come downtown at night,” LeDoux said.  “We get about 20,000 people [downtown] on a typical  afternoon, but not many of them come back at night. That has to change.”

Fixing the Carousel Mall property became more difficult when the city filed bankruptcy in 2012, LeDoux said.

“Everyone hoped something would happen sooner, but it didn’t,” LeDoux said. “That slowed us down, so we’re still working on it.”

City officials should think carefully before replacing Carousel Mall with another indoor mall, said Colin Strange, director of business services for the San Bernardino Area Chamber of Commerce.

“Indoor malls are closing all over the country,” Strange said. “They’re obsolete. They’re not what people want anymore.”