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When it comes to the Carousel Mall in San Bernardino, it seems like nothing is ever easy.
Even getting rid of it six years after it shut down has proven to be enormously difficult, a two-step-forward-one-step-back process.
The downtown shopping center next to Interstate 215 had a few respectable years after it opened as Central City Mall in 1972, but it never generated the amount of revenue the city hoped it would.
In its best days the mall – which changed its name to Carousel Mal in 1991 after a children’s carousel was installed on the bottom floor – barely broke even, for a simple reason: Inland Center Mall opened in 1966, and the market wasn’t big enough to support two regional shopping malls.
“The Carousel Mall probably never should have been built,” former two-term Councilman Jim Mulvihill said in April, shortly after San Bernardino held a demolition ceremony outside the mall’s main entrance. “The Inland Center Mall opened in 1966, and it did well.
“There was no room for a second regional mall in downtown San Bernardino.”
The demolition ceremony came about five weeks after the California Department of Housing and Community Development filed a lawsuit alleging that the city’s plans to restore the 43-acre downtown site violated state regulations.
San Bernardino officials provided inaccurate and incomplete information to the department two years ago when it was putting together its development agreement, according to the lawsuit.
The city also failed to declare the mall surplus land and notify affordable housing developers of the available property, a violation of California’s surplus land act.
That led the department, which develops and enforces housing policies and building codes, to rescind its approval of the city’s development agreement with Renaissance Downtown USA and ICO Real Estate Group, which combined was known as the San Bernardino Development Co.
On May 3, the city council ended its agreement with San Bernardino Development. It also agreed to work with housing and community development on the surplus land act regulations whenever the city is ready to sell the property to another developer.
“The violation is resolved and HCD considers this matter closed,” said David Zisser, the department’s assistant deputy director of local government relations in a May 24 letter to Charles McNeely, San Bernardino’s interim city manager.
That issue was resolved in less than two months, so it might seem like the city could proceed with the demolition and possibly get the first phase started relatively soon.
But fixing the Carousel Mall property has become about overcoming obstacles, and now the city faces perhaps its biggest obstacle of all: complying with the surplus land act’s disposition process, and finding a new developer.
“We’re back to where we were three years ago,” said Councilman Theodore Sanchez, who represents the first ward, in which Carousel Mall is located “This decision clears the way for us to restart the entire process from the beginning, and that’s good news.
“But we’re really back to square one, and that’s difficult. And we won’t break ground until we get the full approval of housing and community development.”
In his four-page letter, Zisser spells out HCD’s surplus land disposition process, which includes:
* Notifying affordable house developers of the availability and giving them 60 days to show if they’re interested in building houses there;
* Provide HCD with any notices of interest the city receive
* Engage in “good-faith” negotiations and then explain why the city selected a specific proposal, or why it declined to make a selection.
Each step must be approved by HCD before the next step may be undertaken
One requirement the city doesn’t have to worry about is declaring the property surplus land, which would normally be the first step with a project the size and scope of restoring a defunct shopping mall. The surplus declaration the city filed last month is sufficient, according to the letter.
The two-story mall, located at 295 Carousel Mall just east of Interstate 215, has been a major problem for the city since it closed.
Despite being surrounded by a fence, the property has become a gathering place for vagrants and homeless people, and several fires have been set there. Former Mayor John Valdivia, who left office in December, declared the property a public health hazard and called for its immediate demolition.
Despite all of the turmoil, San Bernardino remains committed to replacing the mall with a retail-residential-office project that will revitalize downtown, something that everyone agrees is vital to San Bernardino’s economic future.
“It’s absolutely essential,” Mulvihill said, “San Bernardino doesn’t have a lot of economic opportunities, but the Carousel Mall site is a huge one.”
Besides complying with the state’s surplus land disposition guidelines, San Bernardino needs to concentrate on making the mall site “shovel-ready” before it hires a developer, Sanchez said.
“Whoever it ends up being, we want the developer to be able to start building right away,” said Sanchez, who serves on a council subcommittee that is overseeing the mall redevelopment project. “But the work we’ve done over the last three years has been lost, and it could be four or five years before anything is built.
“If there’s a downturn in the economy, it could take longer.”
Being born and raised here, my parents were one of the first pioneers of San Bernardino in the 50’s and 60’s and I think it’s way over due to have a plan for redevelopment. However, I strongly feel that we should preserve the Harris’ and Andressen buildings respectfully. They should be considered historic landmarks. and maybe the old W.G. Woolworth building too if it’s not dilapidated. Riverside seems to care about their history in buildings and we don’t. We haven’t many left. We should strongly consider working around those buildings and make them useful to the community. At least we still have the 5th street post office and the courthouse.
Thank you..