Triangle Square to refocus on fashion

Efforts to restore Triangle Square to full occupancy have taken

another turn.

Earlier this year, plans to attract businesses to the Costa Mesa

mall shifted from retail toward an entertainment emphasis.

City regulations, however, have prompted leasing executive Cameron

Crowner to look toward fashion retailers to fill the shopping

center’s empty spaces.

“Parking does dictate, at the end of the day, what you can and

cannot do,” Crowner said.

Crowner is a vice president at the Irvine office of Colliers

Seeley International, a Los Angeles-based real estate firm. He and

his company were hired in June to find tenants for Triangle Square.

Costa Mesa regulations require entertainment spots to have more

parking spaces than stores have. Crowner said the rules mean he can’t

fill the former supermarket space underneath Triangle Square with a

business such as a gym or a bowling alley because those uses would

require twice as much parking as is available. For the same reason,

restaurants would have trouble passing muster with planners.

“Dining is probably the most parking-intensive use you can have

for that project,” Crowner said.

The most notable vacancy at Triangle Square is Niketown’s former

home, located at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and 19th Street. In

addition, entertainment retailer Virgin Megastore is set to close

Sept. 22, and much of the former food court on the mall’s upper level

is empty.

Crowner said he is negotiating with potential tenants, but with

one exception he declined to name specific stores. The one he did

mention was The Closet, a clothing store that is already in business

at Triangle Square.

Crowner and Billy Stade, owner of The Closet, both said they

expected a deal to be made that would allow the store to expand into

the space that Virgin will vacate.

Crowner said he wants to lease upper-level spots that were once

fast-food restaurants to a variety of tenants in the fashion and

apparel business.

“Imagine a couple of girls go out -- they could go to Triangle

Square and they could get their nails done and do some shopping and

get something to eat at the Yard House,” Crowner said.

“If I would have to say I was targeting a demographic, I would say

more younger than older, more female-inclined than male,” he added.

Crowner also said he is looking for Triangle Square to have a more

conventional identity than The Lab, a Costa Mesa shopping center that

markets itself as an edgy anti-mall.

The challenge of replacing Niketown, whose space will be filled

with a Halloween store until Nov. 1, is the store’s unusual design,

Crowner said.

Niketown sold athletic gear in a multilevel store with merchandise

arranged in alcoves. The look and feel of the store was different

than that of many large retailers.

“For most of them, it probably wouldn’t fit into their

conventional format,” Crowner said.

Stade, owner of The Closet, believes unusual retailers are what

Triangle Square needs.

At the Aug. 9 meeting of the Costa Mesa Redevelopment Agency board

-- which is the City Council under a different name -- Stade said

customers have little reason to visit Virgin when they can download

music online. He reiterated that idea Friday.

“Virgin’s a dinosaur. So’s the Nike store. It held the center

back,” Stade said.

Parking issues became evident this summer when Keith Scheinberg of

KSDB Inc. appealed a city staffer’s parking-related decision to block

a restaurant from becoming part of Triangle Square. Scheinberg’s

company owns the planned restaurant, Chronic Cantina, as well as

Chronic Tacos in Newport Beach.

The Costa Mesa planning commission is set to hear Scheinberg’s

appeal Sept. 12 after voting in July to delay the hearing in

anticipation of a new parking study for Triangle Square. Crowner said

the study should be submitted to the city by mid-September.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment.

He can be reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at

o7andrew.edwards@

latimes.comf7.