Report: Rick Caruso Ends Bid to Build Shops at Santa Anita

Rick Caruso has withdrawn his plan to build a massive $500 million open-air mall in the parking lot, according to the Daily News.

A spokesperson for Caruso would not elaborate to the Daily News on his reasons for ending his bid to build a large-scale retail development complex in Arcadia.

Apparelnews.net reports that Caruso made the announcement during a speech at a luncheon at Town Hall Los Angeles, which was held May 12 at The Millennium Biltmore Hotel.

Caruso’s company Caruso Affiliated began working on the project in 2004, but its original agreement with Magna Entertainment Corp., which owns Santa Anita, ended when the Canadian-owned company emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in April of 2010. Caruso Affiliated also faced a lawsuit from neighboring mega-mall and community advocacy group Arcadia First! prior to Magna’s bankruptcy filing.

Since that time, the project’s status has largely been up in the air.

In December of 2010, Caruso told Patch that he hoped to have construction on the Shops at Santa Anita underway by late 2011. “We want to move forward," Caruso said in that December interview. "We're committed."

Signs of the project's uncertainty were apparent in an interview with then-Mayor Peter Amundson in January. "I was told by [Caruso's] people that I would be seeing something of their plans by the first week of November [2010]," Amundson told Patch. "Well, now it's the first week of January.  So we'll see."

Now, Caruso--the developer of the hugely-successful The Grove in Los Angeles and Americana at Brand in Glendale--has moved on.

Staff writer Tina Daunt contributed to this report.