Glendale Galleria

General Growth Properties Inc. said Wednesday that it has completed its $415-million purchase of the Glendale Galleria shopping mall, and also bought a San Francisco Bay Area mall for $89 million. The dual purchase gives the second-largest U.S. mall owner strong flagship properties in California. The Galleria, whose tenants include Macy's, Nordstrom and JC Penney, generates annual retail sales per square foot of $525, about 60% above the industry average.

Long-time rival shopping centers Americana at Brand and the Glendale Galleria are tying the knot with splashy new improvements on Brand Boulevard in downtown Glendale. The changes come as the side-by-side malls usher in new premium tenants - Nordstrom moving from the Galleria to the Americana in September and Bloomingdale's opening just down the street in the Galleria in November. Los Angeles real estate developer Rick Caruso, who owns the Americana and a portion of the Galleria, announced $60 million in improvements to the Americana focused on linking the Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's stores under construction at the two malls.

The Glendale City Council honored the Glendale Galleria this week for crime prevention programs. The mall, its private security force and the Glendale Police Department were honored with a proclamation by the City Council for maintaining a low crime rate at the mall and for sponsoring such crime prevention efforts as a child fingerprinting program, the Glendale Youth Boxing Program and police recruitment.

L.A. electronic musicians have already colonized the northeast L.A. neighborhoods of Lincoln Heights, Mount Washington and Eagle Rock (home to Low End Theory, Stone's Throw and 100% Silk Records, respectively). Now that vibrant scene is sinking its samplers into the badlands of Glendale, with Saturday's opening of the new nightclub Complex. What : In its previous life as the Scene or LaBrie's - well-intentioned efforts to broaden the city's indie-rock venue coterie - the space never quite became appointment viewing.

General Growth Properties, owner of the Glendale Galleria and other large Southland shopping centers, said Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with a Canadian investor that would enable the mall owner to leave Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Brookfield Asset Management Inc., which is part of a company that owns a handful of premier office buildings in Los Angeles County, would invest $2.5 billion in cash in General Growth stock in return for 30% ownership. The deal must be approved by a Bankruptcy Court judge, but if the agreement stands it could rescue Chicago-based General Growth from a hostile takeover attempt by archrival Simon Property Group, the country's largest mall operator.

A fire that erupted inside a men's clothing store near the center of the Glendale Galleria on Saturday night was apparently caused by hot cigarette ashes inadvertently dumped into a waste basket full of paper, officials said. Officials said it was fortunate that the blaze in The Man's Store near the clock tower of the mall broke out at 7:30 p.m. It was 30 minutes after most stores had closed for the evening and shoppers had gone home.

Glendale Galleria officials said Tuesday that three parking structures, all of which were damaged in the Northridge earthquake 16 months ago but have remained standing, will be razed and completely rebuilt over the next two years. A three-story, 1,500-space garage that represented a third of the parking spaces for the Galleria I mall was rebuilt last year after the quake.

Ten months after the Northridge earthquake virtually destroyed it, a 1,500-space parking structure has been rebuilt to reopen Nov. 15, in time for the holiday shopping crush. Three sections of the garage on the Galleria's west side, between the Broadway department store and the mall's food court, were razed in August.

Amid the holiday shopping frenzy at the Glendale Galleria is the gift shop Bliss Unlimited, the only store in the mall that pays no rent--and pays no salaries, and yet is flooded with young applicants for its jobs. Unique in a nation of malls and the legions of teenagers who teem inside them, the Bliss Unlimited experiment of letting students mind the store is being hailed as a model of community cooperation.

Helen Yodlosky figures she has walked more than 1,100 miles through the Glendale Galleria in the past year. And no, she is not a floorwalker for Nordstrom department store or a Buffums security guard looking for shoplifters. She's not even a habitual shopper or one of those people who, in true Southern California fashion, hang out in shopping malls as a substitute for a real downtown. So what possessed her to walk 1,100 miles--the equivalent of walking from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore.

Owners of the Glendale Galleria have launched a massive makeover intended to update the regional shopping center in downtown Glendale. Improvements to the 1.5-million-square-foot center will include the previously announced addition of a Bloomingdale's department store in the space formerly occupied by Mervyns. The Bloomingdale's store is set to open next year. Other changes will be the most comprehensive since the mall opened in 1976 and "nothing short of dramatic," General Manager Larry Martin said.

Location: 100 W. Broadway, Glendale. From the 134 Freeway, take the Central Avenue/Brand Boulevard exit south on Central or Brand to Broadway or Colorado Street. Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mon.-Sat.; 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sun. Known for: Though the management might like to remind shoppers that this mall is so cool it was where Apple opened its first Southern California store, to me it's the monster-size Target. Three stories! And the mall has its own stand-alone Lego store, always a go-to gift source for kids of all ages.

Glendale's Americana at Brand shopping center will open an Apple retail store, the mall's owner said, joining an existing Apple location across the street in the neighboring Glendale Galleria. Real estate magnate Rick Caruso, who owns the Americana, told a luncheon audience Thursday that an Apple store would be added to the open-air property's lineup, which includes Barnes & Noble, Juicy Couture, Anthropologie and H&M. He later declined to provide further details. An Apple Inc. spokeswoman confirmed that the tech giant was hiring for a store at the Americana but also declined to provide details, saying no announcements had been made.

Developer Rick Caruso has wooed Nordstrom away from the rival Glendale Galleria and will bring the department store to his Americana at Brand shopping center in fall 2013. To accomplish the move, Caruso is buying Nordstrom's building from the Seattle retailer. Although most of the Galleria is owned by General Growth Properties, it's common for major department stores to own their own real estate within a mall. Caruso wouldn't say how much he is paying for the Nordstrom building, located in a wing across Central Avenue from the original mall.

JCPenney is hopping on the European fast-fashion autostrada by teaming up with Mango to put MNG by Mango shops in select Penney stores and online starting Wednesday. Based in Barcelona, Spain, Mango has more than 1,300 stores in 94 countries but only 12 in the United States, including locations at Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade and Costa Mesa's South Coast Plaza. The new deal extends that reach to 77 JCPenney stores, with plans to expand to 600 in the next year. Initially, 13 Penneys in the Los Angeles area — including Glendale Galleria, Fox Hills Mall in Culver City and Del Amo in Torrance — will have MNG by Mango shops.

General Growth Properties Inc., the struggling owner of the Glendale Galleria and other large Southland shopping centers, won court approval Friday for a plan to sell the company that puts a group led by Canadian real estate investor Brookfield Asset Management Inc. at the front of the line. The decision by a federal Bankruptcy Court judge in New York ended a hard-fought campaign by rival mall operator Simon Group Inc. to take over General Growth. Simon is the largest mall operator in the U.S., and a merger with General Growth would have created a juggernaut so powerful it would have been able to set mall rents in much of the country, industry observers said.

We have learned much from the Jan. 17 earthquake. For instance, who knew that there would be widespread, post-quake, suburban hysteria known as "mall-withdraw al?" Yes, when an earthquake damages or closes San Fernando Valley shopping malls, Valley residents can muster only so much patience. Then they will hazard any traffic situation, not to mention feelings of claustrophobia, to find a mall, any mall.

An officer arriving at the Glendale Galleria on Wednesday in response to a reported theft fired several shots at a fleeing suspect who tried to run over him in a Jaguar, police said. A police chase led to the shutdown of a mile-long stretch of the Golden State Freeway as the man abandoned the car and apparently disappeared into Griffith Park. The incident began just after 2 p.m. when someone reported an attempted theft by a man and woman at Nordstrom. The woman was arrested in the mall.

General Growth Properties, owner of the Glendale Galleria and other large Southland shopping centers, said Wednesday that it had reached an agreement with a Canadian investor that would enable the mall owner to leave Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Brookfield Asset Management Inc., which is part of a company that owns a handful of premier office buildings in Los Angeles County, would invest $2.5 billion in cash in General Growth stock in return for 30% ownership. The deal must be approved by a Bankruptcy Court judge, but if the agreement stands it could rescue Chicago-based General Growth from a hostile takeover attempt by archrival Simon Property Group, the country's largest mall operator.