Sport Chalet's founder sees dream come true
Norbert Olberz has sought for decades to develop a commercial hub in La Cañada Flintridge that would contain his company's headquarters and a flagship store.
Decades have passed since Sport Chalet Inc. founder Norbert Olberz, 83, began pressing to develop a shopping plaza in the heart of La Cañada Flintridge.
Sometimes he wondered if it would ever happen. "I just hope I don't die first," he said eight years ago.
He didn't.
On Thursday, the tenacious German immigrant will celebrate the opening of a 45,000-square-foot Sport Chalet that is the centerpiece of the La Cañada Flintridge Town Center development. The $60-million project stretches over about 11 acres at the northeast corner of Angeles Crest Highway and Foothill Boulevard, and ultimately will be home to 15 stores and restaurants.
Olberz's campaign to develop the parcel pitched this normally tranquil bedroom community into a furor in the 1990s, sparking a political brouhaha and leading the community to create a master plan to guide development.
Much has changed since then for Olberz, and for Sport Chalet, which went public in 1992. He's now retired, but don't ask him how he likes it.
"I was a workhorse, and now I'm retired," he said. "I'm bored stiff."
Sport Chalet Chief Executive Craig Levra doesn't have time to be bored.
Sales at the company's 52 stores have been waylaid by a weak economy. Sport Chalet's share price has sunk from nearly $10 last year to $3.12 on Tuesday, and the company lost $3.4 million in the fiscal year that ended March 30, its first annual loss in 12 years. In the first quarter of this fiscal year, it lost $4.5 million.
"People we talk to, whether it's manufacturers or retailers or mall landlords or the financial community . . . say the same thing," Levra said in the latest earnings conference call. "They've never seen anything, an economy, quite like this."
In addition, the fiercely competitive marketplace where Olberz staked his claim is about to get even tougher as Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. elbows its way into the state. The nation's largest sporting goods chain by revenue didn't have any stores in California until last year, when it bought Covina-based Chick's Sporting Goods Inc., operator of 15 Southland stores.
In the next seven to 10 years, Dick's expects to have 90 stores in California. That is "definitely a long-term concern" for Sport Chalet, said Jeff Mintz, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities in Los Angeles.
- Council Delays Hearings on Sport Chalet Mar 22, 1990
- Sport Chalet Owners to Scale Down Plans for Shopping Center Jul 05, 1990
- Candidates Give Views on Development Apr 05, 1990
