Photograph by Jeff Kearns
Silicon Valley WAVE (Walking and Entertainment Village) is still scheduled to open in what is still known as the Sunnyvale Town Center Mall, but the ambitious project is not going to hit its Fall '99 opening date.
Mall's future looks bright, but further than hoped
Silicon Valley WAVE continues to rise, but won't break till 2000
By Sam Scott
Ken McGee, general manager of the Sunnyvale Town Center Mall, has a vision of what will happen when the old mall transforms into the Silicon Valley WAVE, the Walking and Entertainment Village.
"People will come for the shopping, maybe go buy some tennis shoes for the kids, then get a meal in one of the restaurants. Then, 'We're going to a movie!' It's an evening out."
The remodeled WAVE will feature a pedestrian shopping way, a 20-screen theater, two parking garages, popular stores like Barnes & Noble, and family restaurants in addition to the current mall, McGee says.
McGee won't see his vision of tennis-shoe-buying parents dining in the mall's restaurants for at least a year, however. Despite initial estimates that it would open this fall, the WAVE remains very much offshore.
In March, when the Sunnyvale City Council approved the center's revitalization, and council members expected that construction would be completed by late this fall. But the shovel has yet to hit the dirt, and new estimates call for completion a year from November at the earliest.
"It was probably a little bit premature to think we'd be open this fall," McGee says. He says delays in projects this size are normal.
Councilman Jack Walker says he agrees that such slips in schedules are normal, but he worries that the delay will result in a product out of step with the rhythm of the day. "My big fear is that we build something and that it will be obsolete," he says.
Reaching an agreement with the mall's anchor tenants--Macy's, Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney--has caused the delay in construction, says Jerry Schutte of American Mall Properties. Unlike the majority of the mall's stores, the three anchor stores own their land and have to agree to changes in the mall.
Allaying concerns about access has been a major part of the process, Schutte says. They have rearranged plans for parking to give each anchor the same advantage.
Schutte also says part of the delay comes down to the three anchor stores' using their leverage to get concessions from the mall management.
"It's just plain horse-trading," Schutte says.
Schutte says he expects the anchors to sign the agreement within the next 30 days, with demolition beginning in January. Contractors will remove the center section of the parking structure at Mathilda and McKinley to make way for the pedestrian mall and to open up the view between the mall and the street.
The additions to the mall, which will stay open during construction, come in tandem with cosmetic improvements to the original shopping center. The inside will get fresh paint and a new floor.
"The idea to build all these modern shops and leave a 1970s-style, dark, earth-toned mall really wouldn't work," McGee says.
Walker says he fears that the mall, for all its newness, won't distinguish itself from other malls and shopping centers in the area.
Dyane Matas, who works for the city on the project, thinks that the center's proximity to downtown gives it an edge over other malls. "You don't just go out to a movie, you go downtown, then maybe go to dinner on Murphy," she says. "After movie get a coffee book at the book store," she says.
An attempt to tie downtown with the mall is also planned. The city's main downtown way, Murphy Street, which now ends at the edge of the mall's parking lot, will be extended to the front of J.C. Penney. The idea is to connect the downtown with the shopping center, McGee says. Retails stores modeled to fit in with downtown may be added along this extension, he says.
The mall renovation is only one part of extensive construction planned for downtown next year. In the spring or summer, work on two five-story buildings located near the Town and Country center should begin. A new parking structure at the Caltrain station is also slated for groundbreaking this spring. A plaza is planned for construction after the completion of the office buildings.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
