Primestor Planning Big Panorama City Mall Redevelopment
Panorama Mall owners Primestor Development have big plans for the retail center and are taking steps to bring them to fruition.
The Culver City-based developer filed an application with the city of Los Angeles last week that would allow it to bring up to 4.5M SF of commercial, residential and hotel uses to the site bounded by Roscoe and Van Nuys boulevards, Chase Street and Tobias Avenue. The Real Deal was the first to report the filing.
"Panorama City Center will introduce a dynamic mixed-use environment to a 17-acre site that today is significantly underutilized," Primestor said in a statement. "The revitalization will deliver quality jobs, investment, and economic empowerment to a community that has experienced under-investment over the last fifty years."
Representatives for Primestor were not immediately available for additional comment.
The statement said the project, which is referred to as Panorama City Center, will feature a range of housing options to meet community needs and references the proposed Van Nuys light rail line, a 6.7-mile project that would run along a stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard and pass this project. The rail line is slated to open in 2028.
A timeline or budget for the project is not included in the statement. The project will require approval of a specific plan from the city, the filing indicates.
Primestor purchased the Panorama Mall from Macerich in 2015, paying $98M for it and the Aldi across the street on Roscoe, property records show. It had previously angled for a smaller-scale addition to the site, submitting plans to the city to add about 260K SF to the site for a hotel, theater and about 130K SF of new shops.
The firm secured a $30M refinance for the property from East West Bank in March 2021, according to The Real Deal.
The 312K SF mall has a number of Latino-focused tenants, including a Curacao department store. A brochure for the mall says more than three-quarters of the residents in a 3-mile radius of the mall are Latino. Other tenants include Walmart and Foot Locker.
The mall is directly across the street from a former Montgomery Ward site where developer ICON has long been attempting to build a seven-building development with 623 apartments, 60K SF of retail and restaurants, and a 17K SF landscaped plaza.
