‘Soft’ Opening Slated for Shopping Center on City-Owned Site

• So-Called ‘Lumber Yard’ Complex Is Now Indicating It Should Be Finished Sometime in March

BY BILL KOENEKER

Another date set for the opening of the so-called Malibu Lumber Yard shopping center, the first week of February, has come and gone with the beleaguered city-owned mall still under construction.
“We plan a soft opening in March,” said Fiona Hutton, a spokesperson for Richard Weintraub, the developer, who with city officials had announced last year they believed the former lumberyard would be open for shoppers in October, 2008.
Delays on permitting caused a schedule revision that called for the upscale center to open just days before Christmas to take advantage of the height of the shopping season.
That deadline went nearly unnoticed when municipal officials and the developer sought a crucial wastewater permit from the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
By the beginning of 2009, with a permit in hand, the next opening date was announced as the second week of February.
With construction still ongoing, shoppers have had no opportunity to explore the makeover of the beloved lumberyard.
“We will have a formal grand opening in the summer. I don’t know when in March we’ll open,” added Huttton, who said the shopping center would gradually fill from the springtime through summer with tenants. Besides the high-end boutiques, a bakery and two restaurants are planned.
Hutton said the center was not completely filled up and negotiations were still ongoing with various prospective tenants.
She said signed tenants include James Perse, J. Crew, Andrianna Shamaris, Crumbs Bake Shop, Kitson, Tory Burch, Intermix, Alice+Olivia, Theory, Maxfield and Planet Blue Kids.