Hundreds of eager shoppers will flood the stores of Santana Row and Westfield Shoppingtown Valley Fair this weekend, but at Eastridge Shopping Center business won't be nearly as bustling.
These days, chairs in the lounge areas of the 34-year-old mall are usually unoccupied. The escalators rarely carry more than two shoppers at a time. Shoppers are scattered throughout the stores and walkways, browsing through the racks and shelves.
Eastridge's owners hope a large-scale expansion and redevelopment project that began in March will change the fortunes of the East San Jose shopping center.
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| Photo by Rhiannon Wheeler |
The changes will include:
• A 16-screen AMC theater with stadium seating in a new building connected to a new food court in the original building by a walkway.
• Sit-down restaurants around the mall's perimeter.
• A completely redesigned interior, with new stores, a center court with cushioned seats and a children's play area.
• A streetscape, offering a variety of shops, added in conjunction with the movie theater.
• Reducing the height of the center from three stories to two.
• Additional parking. The mall will have 7,500 parking spaces, about the same as Valley Fair, but all of Eastridge's parking spaces are on a flat surface, accommodating shoppers who want to make a quick stop and avoid parking garages.
"Our customers tell us that they really value being able to save time," said Wareham. "It will be really convenient for them to park and dash in and out."
This is the mall's fourth renovation since its opening in 1970 and its first since 1995. It is the first complete make-over of the center -- renovating 254,991 square feet of space and eliminating the ice rink, the vacant Emporium building and other internal stores. Just one-third of the mall's stores will remain open during construction, which is expected to be completed in October 2005.
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| Photo by Rhiannon Wheeler |
Will the changes bring customers back? Denise Tran doesn't think so.
"They just don't care about their customers," said Denise, 15, a student at Silver Creek High School. Denise said that she used to go to Eastridge but now frequents Westfield Shoppingtown Oakridge in South San Jose. "I mean, they shut down half the mall."
Jimmy Phan, 16, a student at Silver Creek High School, wondered if customers will be lured back for good.
"They'll come out the first couple of weeks because of the 'new' factor," said Jimmy. "But the mall needs a lot of variety to make sure they don't leave."
Another challenge facing the renovation project is coming from the Santa Clara and San Benito Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, which has accused project managers of hiring out-of-state workers in order to cut costs. The group recently held a protest outside the mall and has purchased full-page advertisements in the San Jose Mercury News urging customers not to shop at Eastridge.
"We've been working closely with the labor unions for some time, so we were quite surprised that they used these tactics," said Wareham.
In response, General Growth Properties, owner of Eastridge, bought a full-page ad in the June 23 Mercury News, attempting to rebut the claims of the trades council.
That controversy aside, Danh Nguyen, 18, an incoming freshman at San Jose State University, best sums up the consensus among South Bay shoppers:
"I think I'm going to just wait and see."