Re-Thinking Retail

All over the country shopping malls are being re-invented to deal with the increase in online spending and changing patterns of behavior. On Wednesday I attended an eye-opening presentation about local redevelopment efforts. There were two case studies from our neighbors in Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills.

LAGUNA HILLS

Laguna Hills is leading the way in the race (Click Here) with their “Five Lagunas” mall already under construction (see images above). The 44-year old 68 acre shopping center is being completely redone with luxury apartments for nearly 1000 units, an upscale 14 screen movie theatre, a 1 acre park, and a new outward facing retail component, designed to attract new retail operations.

ALISO VIEJO

Aliso Viejo proposes to re-invent their existing Town Center with a major redevelopment project that will create thousands of additional parking spaces (an underground parking structure), more office and retail space, and a 120 room boutique hotel, thus transforming the aging shopping center into a destination (Click Here). For the past two years their new City Manager Dave Doyle has been working with the center developer and dozens of store owners to re-imagine the existing center.

Aliso Viejo and Laguna Hills aren’t the only cities trying to modernize their cities. Mission Viejo and Laguna Niguel are moving in a similar manner (Click Here).

LAKE FOREST

What distinguishes the work being done in our neighboring cities from Lake Forest is that here in our city we are focused on remodeling, rather than re-thinking. The redevelopment work on El Toro Rd certainly improved the look of the area, but it did little more than that. The work at the new Gateway center is similarly a big improvement on the old center, but hardly re-thinking. In both cases we have a much nicer looking area, but in the future, merely looking better may not be enough. As our neighbors rethink and create new shopping experiences, they may draw new customers from our City, seriously reducing our sales tax base and possibly even impacting our jobs.

Bear in mind, sales tax is one of our biggest sources of revenue. In 2016-17 we anticipated revenue of $14,700,000 which is 33% of our total. Only property taxes ($15,927,400 or 36%) is larger. The next biggest source of funds is the hotel tax at $3,550,000 or 8%. The financial well-being of our city rests on a strong sales tax base.

RE-THINKING

Generally speaking the City has been reasonably passive with regard to redevelopment. We have sections of the city that cry out for change, but the City has relied upon market forces to initiate change rather than taking the kind of active role in the process that our neighbors are doing. Take a drive around the city and you’ll see that several areas might be good candidates for an overhaul.

The area around the Freeway is a great place for redevelopment efforts because it will allow easy access into and out of the area. This will avoid adding to the traffic problems we have in the rest of the city.

This is also a great area for affordable housing, which is in short supply in our City and even shorter supply in other parts of the County. By placing affordable housing close to the freeway, we get the benefits of additional units (hence more property taxes, more customers) without the problems of traffic. One of the great errors made by past Councils was to add so many new homes at the Eastern end of the City. These 12,000 new cars and 40,000+ new trips per day almost all filter through the rest of the city, on their way to the freeway and shopping. Placing new homes close to the freeway and within walking distance of major shopping is a better way to grow our city.

Tomorrow let’s discuss some positive ways to move forward.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a Town Hall meeting every quarter. The next meeting will be in January at the Foothill Ranch Public Library.