In the South Coast Plaza Area, Renovation Ball Is in Other Court

Crystal Court, the “other” mall that has long been overshadowed by neighboring South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, will undergo a major revitalization that includes a motorized walkway to connect the two retail centers.

C.J. Segerstrom & Sons, the family-owned development company that operates both malls, plans to have an 800-foot walkway over Bear Avenue “up and running within 18 months,” Anton Segerstrom, general manager of Crystal Court, said Wednesday.

He said the company plans to complete the walkway in time for the 1999 holiday shopping season. He declined to disclose the cost.

The bridge is part of a larger plan to overhaul the tenant mix of Crystal Court. Key to the strategy is a plan by R.H. Macy & Co. to convert its 192,000-square-foot store into a Macy’s Home Store, according to people familiar with the company’s plans.

With a Macy’s Home Store in hand, the Segerstroms could then market Crystal Court as more of a home- furnishings pavilion and go after a host of new concepts in that category, including Crate & Barrel Furniture, Eddie Bauer Home and Banana Republic Home.

“Anything that will increase the accessibility between the centers would be positive, particularly if there’s going to be a bigger emphasis in Crystal Court on home furnishings,” said Greg Stoffel, an Irvine shopping-center consultant. “That would make it more of a destination center.”

The 600,000-square-foot Crystal Court opened in 1986 as the first major extension of South Coast Plaza, the highest-grossing shopping center in the western U.S., with 1997 sales of about $950 million. But it has never lived up to the expectations of its famous sibling.

For the Segerstroms, the walkway would complete a long-unrealized dream of connecting the two centers. Its construction has been delayed for years by objections from May Department Stores Co. because its archrival, Broadway Stores Inc., was an anchor at Crystal Court. However, Broadway was acquired by Macy parent Federated Department Stores in 1995, causing May to withdraw its protest.

For now, Macy isn’t publicly discussing its plans for the Crystal Court store.

Privately, Macy’s West Chairman Michael Steinberg has told the Segerstroms the Crystal Court home store is the company’s best opportunity this year, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

The big New York department-store chain has operated its Crystal Court store as a kind of clearance center for more than a year.

Its conversion to a home store is said to be tied up by internal bickering between the merchants and accountants within Macy’s. The conversion would involve moving the home-furnishings department out of Macy’s main store at South Coast Plaza, which would trigger a renovation of that store too.

The two projects together would probably cost upward of $50 million, industry experts estimate.

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Shopping Connection

Plans call for an 800-foot motorized walkway that would stretch from the third floor of Crystal Court across Bear Street to South Coast Plaza, between Nordstrom and Macy’s.