Kirkland's Totem Lake Mall just a shadow of its former self
Shopping at the Totem Lake Mall in Kirkland, just off busy Interstate 405, can be a solitary experience these days. You cannot cradle a latte while browsing, after the Adorable Treasures and Treats cafe closed last year. Even Santa has stopped making his annual pilgrimage.
Seven stores in the enclosed lower mall are vacant, including the large anchor store that was once home to Gottschalks. Separated by busy 120th Avenue Northeast, the companion upper mall is faring slightly better but also has empty stores.
"The place is just dying," said Bill Arnold, who relocated his floor-covering business last year to a nearby strip mall. In less than five years at Totem Lake Mall, Arnold said he dealt with three different owners who promised improvements but never acted.
City of Kirkland sales-tax receipts show that after five years of modest growth, total sales at the mall plunged by $10 million last year to $49 million, the lowest level since the early 1990s. The 2002 take equates to $165 per square-foot of retail space — compared with $450 per square foot at the Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood and about $600 at Bellevue Square.
The Totem Lake Mall, built 30 years ago, has never been a runaway success. But over the past decade it has been limping through a succession of owners and a who's who of failed retailers.
The Thrifty Foods supermarket closed in the early 1990s, and Ernst hardware went bankrupt in 1997. In 2000, the Lamonts chain occupying the crucial anchor spot went into bankruptcy, followed two years later by the company that took it over, Gottschalks.
The Totem Lake Cinema closed after Loews Cineplex Entertainment went bankrupt. It has since been reopened by two brothers screening East Indian movies. Larger surviving stores include Ross Dress for Less, Rite-Aid, CompUSA, Trader Joe's and Denny's Pet World.
The mall was supposed to turn the corner two years ago when the latest owners, U.S. Retail Partners, announced plans for an ambitious $60 million overhaul.
The revamp would have nearly doubled the floor space to a half-million square feet and added a sky bridge to connect the upper and lower malls. Retailer Target was negotiating to become a new anchor tenant.
Kirkland city planners, who were working closely with mall owners, even changed zoning codes to allow higher buildings in anticipation of the changes. But, blaming a stagnating economy, the owners never submitted permit applications.
Eric Shields, the city's director of planning, said the owners came back with a much smaller plan three months ago.
Essentially that plan would have blasted a hole through the middle of the lower mall for better pedestrian access, transforming it into more of a strip mall, with shops only accessible from the outside. The sky bridge had fallen to a ground-level pedestrian crossing in the new plan, which had a price tag of about $12 million.
"It was not a real inspiring idea," Shields acknowledged.
Yet whether even that plan is progressing remains unclear.
This week, John Reinholt, the Retail Partners manager who oversees the mall from Clackamas, Ore., said the company is pursuing two options for the lower mall: remodeling the existing buildings or reconfiguring the mall design. But he could not say when something might happen or how much it might cost.
Retail Partners, in conjunction with the California Public Employees' Retirement Systems, owns or manages 42 retail centers in 11 states, according to its Web site. It has a portfolio worth $900 million and has two offices in California as well as the one in Clackamas.
"Without a question, our goal is to redevelop the center," Reinholt said. "We are going through a process here, and it has been a challenge."
Reinholt said that tenants and potential tenants have become cautious, and negotiations are more sensitive and difficult. Target is still interested, he said.
"The plan is getting executed but not at the velocity we would like it to be," he said.
The momentum has been all backward so far, according to some retailers, who seem to have taken a fatalistic attitude to the mall. One has needed to remind security guards several times to keep the lights on until 9 p.m., the official closing time. Most retailers go home earlier.
Scott Hays, owner of Totem Lake Shoe Repair, is on a month-to-month lease like many of the remaining tenants. He is hanging on thanks to loyal customers who seek him out, he said, but misses out on new customers, who travel to malls in Bellevue or Redmond to shop.
"There is nothing to come down here for," he said. "It is dying more and more all the time."
Hays is surrounded by an odd assortment of retailers, who sell party supplies, beds, jewelry, Christian books and collectibles. Elderly couples stop for a bite at the Old Country Buffet.
In drafting a new Totem Lake neighborhood plan last year, the city of Kirkland looked to the mall for future sales-tax growth. With the rapidly expanding Evergreen Hospital Medical Center and plans for a nearby Sound Transit bus center and I-405 overpass it seemed to make sense. There are no other large indoor retail centers in Kirkland, and most argue the location is good.
"Certainly it's a concern," said Marilynne Beard, the city's finance director. "Everyone would like to see a more vibrant retail center."
Until the big retailers and foot traffic come, though, Hays said he will continue fixing heels and soles, stitching, stretching and slinging shoes. After 20 years in business at the mall, the shoe shop is a survivor.
Nick Perry: 206-515-5639 or nperry@seattletimes.com