I only go there for din tai fung and Cheesecake Factory. There are no shops except from Nike that I have any interest in shopping in. The place is 70% vacant. There are no anchor stores left and there isn’t even a food court anymore. It’s a sad state of affairs. Eventually it’ll become like the westside pavilion where it just turns into office space or maybe housing. I don’t see this place becoming a happening mall again. Everyone goes to century city or the grove as there are actual stores there to shop in.
Was there just today, what a snooze fest. Commercial rent is just way too high. Can someone ELI5 how these empty stores still make financial sense despite being empty for years?
There is a post about that the other day I believe in the Santa Monica forum here. Apparently it’s better for valuation to have a property with only a few high rents but lower occupancy than a property with much lower rents, even if it’s fully occupied.
In the first case the valuation is based on those high rents and a presumptive occupancy rate, so the upside looks better. A full building with 1/10th the rent is worth almost nothing.
And also, if the property is leveraged with debt, the loan probably has minimum rent requirements, so they can’t even rent lower without a loan mod and lender approval…
I can give a different answer I am a commercial land lord with a lot of property and I formally worked in institutional debt and equity. Their is a metric that almost every commercial real estate loan has called a DCR (debt coverage ratio) if the loan proceeds doesn’t cover this ratio at a minimum set amount that the bank or institution sets when they make the loan than they instantly go in to default of their loan. Which can lead to foreclosure and repossession of the property. These loans often were originated when rents were much higher and if they admit that new leases will lease for far less and vacancies are likely to be higher they are likely to go into default.
And they’re doing away with 90 minutes free parking in the garages in exchange for only 30 — people already aren’t going. City needs to do everything it can to encourage people to return, not add more deterrents.
I think they’re sort of on the right track with the third street promenade in hosting events. The holey Moley place and the pickleball place are entertainment focused rather than shopping. A Dave n busters or arcade or something along those lines. Something needs to be done.
Vacancy taxes ignore how commercial real estate actually works. On the Promenade, landlords must meet lender requirements and negotiate complex leases. They can’t simply set rent lower to avoid a tax. Penalizing vacancy doesn’t bring in stable tenants or lower rents — it makes properties harder to finance, increases landlord risk, and ultimately hurts the very businesses and community we want to support.
With new management in place now and the realignment plan rolling out the future of Santa Monica Place is very bright. I don’t think many people really appreciate how much things have changed for the better since Oliver Chi was hired as city manager. If we had the stance and leadership we do currently as a city we never would have lost Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s in the first place.
I like century city mall because the stores are interesting. Pop mart and Lego store are cool, the AMC there is amazing, the dessert sports and eataly are cool and then there are TWO great and secret interactive spots there to do stuff at! And the shows there are cool. Here the promenade needs cooler stores it’s all too boring.
First of all it needs more interactive stuff like 2bit and holey Moley I’d say add a third thing like an escape room, or ping pong lounge or something.
Then bring in a small boutique stores like specialty bookstores, or a small muji
Add in more practical stores for home goods and lifestyle stuff, and luxury stores are cool but they gotta be cool luxury like Balenciaga, Gucci, off white or rick, something to make it standout.
The luxury brands now feel like un cool luxury like shit ppl who wear Ed hardy would buy. Nothing fresh and hip, it needs some diversity.
Went to 3rd Street Promenade (which has Santa Monica Place at one end). Counted dozens of empty stores with "For Lease" signs. The empty stores in Santa Monica Place had pretty paper on the windows to "disguise" that they were empty.
This used to be my go-to mall and fun shopping area. Sad to see that it's a ghost town now.
Edit: Meanwhile Westfield Culver City is happening! Had trouble finding a parking spot there yesterday.
City council needs to WAKE UP and stop promoting fake videos of how lively it is, it’s not. It’s very SAD as it’s one of the most beautiful spots in the country and it’s all a SHAME. This has been goin on since the metro train opened. The locals know, many locals don’t want to admit it, the government does nothing about it and turn their cheeks to stay in power, so they don’t get ousted by their own inner circle. The city acts like it’s all so jolly and great, but police are not effective as they can’t arrest, or touch any mentally ill, transient violent individuals and drug dealers. The police reduce to clean up the visible rampant drug use. Homeless pee and poo everywhere, even in front of people’s properties, they do not enforced codes and make excuses for the law breakers. It’s almost like they are there to protect those that break laws and not the community. The citizens have no rights, no protection and don’t feel safe day or night. The city has sold out for every real estate bidder in every corner. This is absolutely WRONG for such a wealthy community. I can understand growth, but a sustainable one that benefits its community and people, not their 💰pockets. Shame on the SM city council!!!! 🤢
Check out the Park on 5th and Broadway. Bankrupt. Clock tower on third and Santa Monica. Bankrupt. New project at 7th and Broadway. Bankrupt. Madison capitals deals, start with 5th and Broadway, throughout the city, same with Lighthouse and Hankey on 7th street, bankrupt! Macerich mall, fucking literally in special servicing… bankrupt! Oh and then let’s talk about the airport and the hundreds of millions owed to sexual lawsuits. Yeah bankrupt bro.
Everyone is at Century City because they actually have stores to shop in. We were there on Thursday and it was packed.
CC and SM Place have not been comparable in any shape or form for years, certainly since the pandemic
Sadly
They fared better than the Westside Pavilion…
I prefer going to SM since parking is easy and free for 90 min.
How did they fuck this up with good parking and next to fucking beach?
Insult to injury, they are doing away with the 90 minutes free parking in the new year 🫠 its 30 minutes now
yup a lot of businesses will suffer and neighborhoods will be crowded with cars parking on street. It's a nail on the coffin.
Short trips will be more expensive but longer trips will be cheaper. So its a give and take.
The owner of this mall has seemingly given up. Doesn’t feel like they’re trying to fill it at all anymore.
Given up, they handed the property back to the lender
it's hard to make it work when Nordstrom closes up, usually the sign of the end for malls around LA
It's hard to make a Nordstrom work when anyone can steal without consequence.
She’s always empty. 🥲
Only Apple, Alo, and Uniqlo are keeping it alive, and they are hudling up together.
It would suck if Purple closed up.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
I think there were some rats tho
I only go there for din tai fung and Cheesecake Factory. There are no shops except from Nike that I have any interest in shopping in. The place is 70% vacant. There are no anchor stores left and there isn’t even a food court anymore. It’s a sad state of affairs. Eventually it’ll become like the westside pavilion where it just turns into office space or maybe housing. I don’t see this place becoming a happening mall again. Everyone goes to century city or the grove as there are actual stores there to shop in.
What a sad sad state of affairs
Was there just today, what a snooze fest. Commercial rent is just way too high. Can someone ELI5 how these empty stores still make financial sense despite being empty for years?
There is a post about that the other day I believe in the Santa Monica forum here. Apparently it’s better for valuation to have a property with only a few high rents but lower occupancy than a property with much lower rents, even if it’s fully occupied.
In the first case the valuation is based on those high rents and a presumptive occupancy rate, so the upside looks better. A full building with 1/10th the rent is worth almost nothing.
And also, if the property is leveraged with debt, the loan probably has minimum rent requirements, so they can’t even rent lower without a loan mod and lender approval…
The lender owns it now 😅
I can give a different answer I am a commercial land lord with a lot of property and I formally worked in institutional debt and equity. Their is a metric that almost every commercial real estate loan has called a DCR (debt coverage ratio) if the loan proceeds doesn’t cover this ratio at a minimum set amount that the bank or institution sets when they make the loan than they instantly go in to default of their loan. Which can lead to foreclosure and repossession of the property. These loans often were originated when rents were much higher and if they admit that new leases will lease for far less and vacancies are likely to be higher they are likely to go into default.
They got rid of Nordstrom and Bloomies so no anchor anymore.
And they’re doing away with 90 minutes free parking in the garages in exchange for only 30 — people already aren’t going. City needs to do everything it can to encourage people to return, not add more deterrents.
The per hour rate is going down though so longer visits will be cheaper.
I miss the old SM mall before they re-designed it. It was such a nice mall and it was full almost all the time.
Spikey with SM Place Santa.
https://preview.redd.it/e7d2pd455q8g1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f9b04c55e701d61a4494ad8f50dec140397e17d
Frank Gehry original too
I was at the Beverly Center 90 min ago and it looked just like that.
Beverly Center's been dead since before Covid. I've only gone there once to do a return and was shocked to see what it's become.
Yeah basically everyone just goes to Century City and I suppose the Grove (I avoid that place).
I've been to both Century City and The Grove recently, and both places were packed.
And they renovated less than 10 years ago. What a joke.
Need to really do something drastic
I think they’re sort of on the right track with the third street promenade in hosting events. The holey Moley place and the pickleball place are entertainment focused rather than shopping. A Dave n busters or arcade or something along those lines. Something needs to be done.
Dave & Busters would be great!
Meanwhile, Amazon trucks are everywhere.
This is like a future Great Depression photo
Vacancy tax now
Vacancy taxes ignore how commercial real estate actually works. On the Promenade, landlords must meet lender requirements and negotiate complex leases. They can’t simply set rent lower to avoid a tax. Penalizing vacancy doesn’t bring in stable tenants or lower rents — it makes properties harder to finance, increases landlord risk, and ultimately hurts the very businesses and community we want to support.
With new management in place now and the realignment plan rolling out the future of Santa Monica Place is very bright. I don’t think many people really appreciate how much things have changed for the better since Oliver Chi was hired as city manager. If we had the stance and leadership we do currently as a city we never would have lost Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s in the first place.
Wow. Such empty…
I like century city mall because the stores are interesting. Pop mart and Lego store are cool, the AMC there is amazing, the dessert sports and eataly are cool and then there are TWO great and secret interactive spots there to do stuff at! And the shows there are cool. Here the promenade needs cooler stores it’s all too boring.
First of all it needs more interactive stuff like 2bit and holey Moley I’d say add a third thing like an escape room, or ping pong lounge or something.
Then bring in a small boutique stores like specialty bookstores, or a small muji
Add in more practical stores for home goods and lifestyle stuff, and luxury stores are cool but they gotta be cool luxury like Balenciaga, Gucci, off white or rick, something to make it standout.
The luxury brands now feel like un cool luxury like shit ppl who wear Ed hardy would buy. Nothing fresh and hip, it needs some diversity.
Dreamscape permanently closed btw
Imagine In n Out opens walking in only restaurant in the middle of promenade....
That. Would be dangerous for me.
Imagine if that’s all it took to turn things around. This is IMO the best idea proposed to date.
People on here will tell you homelessness and crime are not a problem. People IIEL behave differently.
I thought this was Tony Stark's place for a sec.
It was pretty full on Saturday tho
sad. used to take my kids here for their santa pictures.
Went to 3rd Street Promenade (which has Santa Monica Place at one end). Counted dozens of empty stores with "For Lease" signs. The empty stores in Santa Monica Place had pretty paper on the windows to "disguise" that they were empty.
This used to be my go-to mall and fun shopping area. Sad to see that it's a ghost town now.
Edit: Meanwhile Westfield Culver City is happening! Had trouble finding a parking spot there yesterday.
City council needs to WAKE UP and stop promoting fake videos of how lively it is, it’s not. It’s very SAD as it’s one of the most beautiful spots in the country and it’s all a SHAME. This has been goin on since the metro train opened. The locals know, many locals don’t want to admit it, the government does nothing about it and turn their cheeks to stay in power, so they don’t get ousted by their own inner circle. The city acts like it’s all so jolly and great, but police are not effective as they can’t arrest, or touch any mentally ill, transient violent individuals and drug dealers. The police reduce to clean up the visible rampant drug use. Homeless pee and poo everywhere, even in front of people’s properties, they do not enforced codes and make excuses for the law breakers. It’s almost like they are there to protect those that break laws and not the community. The citizens have no rights, no protection and don’t feel safe day or night. The city has sold out for every real estate bidder in every corner. This is absolutely WRONG for such a wealthy community. I can understand growth, but a sustainable one that benefits its community and people, not their 💰pockets. Shame on the SM city council!!!! 🤢
Worst “mall” in LA.
Make it a community center.
Make it housing. No reason this cant be bulldozed and made into 750+ units
Wow this is pretty 😍 where is this at in LA?
Santa Monica gets what Santa Monica deserves.
Great to see presents in a bankrupt property and a bankrupt city. Maybe figure your shit out before the pretending.
“Bankrupt city” LMFAO
Not bankrupt exactly, but the PAL sexual abuse lawsuit payouts alone are creating some very lean times for the city financially for a while
Check out the Park on 5th and Broadway. Bankrupt. Clock tower on third and Santa Monica. Bankrupt. New project at 7th and Broadway. Bankrupt. Madison capitals deals, start with 5th and Broadway, throughout the city, same with Lighthouse and Hankey on 7th street, bankrupt! Macerich mall, fucking literally in special servicing… bankrupt! Oh and then let’s talk about the airport and the hundreds of millions owed to sexual lawsuits. Yeah bankrupt bro.
Does anyone even go to Santa Monica in general
I looked at an apartment in SM today. $1400 for about 120 sq ft. That's down from the initial asking price of $1700.
It’s on the up and up!