LA Gives Good Mall

The American mall, if you’re not accustomed, is no longer called a mall but rather an urban lifestyle center. And this past week, Los Angeles opened its newest and finest: Americana at Brand.

Named for the street it sits on in Glendale, its gardens, trolleys, and fountains are supposed to invoke a Disney-esque, faux European/Mayberry town that houses a Kate Spade, Tiffany & Co., and Wetzel’s Pretzels. I, unfortunately, was not able to visit it opening weekend because my significant other thinks the whole thing rather disgusting. She doesn’t get off on “good mall” like I do. She doesn’t understand. She reads Michael Pollan.

The $400 million Americana is the brainchild of Rick Caruso, the creator of Los Angeles’s other notable mall, The Grove. Whereas The Grove is just a lifestyle center for shopping, Americana is a lifestyle center for shopping and living, containing 238 apartments and 100 condos (priced from $700,000 to $2.4 million, according to the LA Times).

Last week, the festivities kicked off with a private party that included Jay Leno as an emcee; Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger uttering sentences such as, “I love shopping. I’ll be BACK”; and an entire jury who had decided a civil court case in favor of the new mall. (Basically, a competing nearby mall tried to inflict pain on the construction of Americana by, get this, illegally threatening The Cheesecake Factory from moving into the lifestyle center. The jury awarded Caruso $89 million in damages. You mess with a man’s God-given right to have a Cheesecake Factory, and you’re gonna pay, buddy.)

All this makes me think of the year 1956 and the opening of Southdale, America’s first mall and/or lifestyle center. Back then, putting birds in fifty-foot cages in the malls atrium was considered “good mall." Yeah, I can’t erase those bird cages from my childhood memories.

Sixty years later, we’re still improving on Southdale architect Victor Gruen’s idealized structure that, in his mind, would bring a civic hub to suburbia.  I’m not sure Americana at Brand is what he had in mind.

My question is this: When is MOA opening up condos with a $2.4 million price tag?