Los Angeles’ South Bay Galleria to Get Mixed-Use Makeover

South Bay Galleria. Rendering courtesy of Gensler

South Bay Galleria, a 960,000-square-foot enclosed shopping mall in Redondo Beach, Calif., will soon become a mixed-use destination. Australia’s QIC Global Real Estate, owner of the Los Angeles-area retail center recently formed a strategic partnership with Luxembourg-based L Catterton Real Estate, selling a 50 percent interest in the property and paving the way for its redevelopment.

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Plans for a major renovation of South Bay Galleria, which welcomed its first shoppers in the 1950s as South Bay Center before evolving into Galleria at South Bay in 1985, have been in the works since before QIC became sole owner of the property with the purchase of Forest City Enterprise’s interest in the asset in 2017. QIC’s vision for the project, which incorporates community input, calls for the revitalization of nearly 30 acres, with expanded retail square footage, a hotel, multifamily units, office space and substantial public space. The Redondo Beach City Council gave the proposal the green light in January 2019. “The City’s approval of the development plans was an important step, but it is still too early to provide more specific plans and timelines about the new development,” a spokesperson for QIC Global Real Estate told Commercial Property Executive.

Bringing experience to the table

LCRE, the property division of private equity firm L Catterton, which is backed by luxury conglomerate LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, possesses a certain expertise in creating premier mixed-use developments. In 2010, LCRE partnered with Dacra to kick off development of the Miami Design District, a celebrated 30-acre enclave of predominantly luxury retailers, upscale restaurants, art galleries and hotels. The company also joined forces with Mori Building and Sumitomo Corp. in 2013 on the development of the 1.6 million-square-foot Ginza SIX luxury retail complex that opened in Tokyo in 2017.

QIC and LCRE have not disclosed a firm timeline for the Gensler-designed South Bay Galleria redevelopment. The project follows the re-envisioning of two other Los Angeles-area shopping centers—Beverly Center, which debuted a $500 million transformation in 2018, and Westside Pavilion, which is being transformed into a state-of-the-art office campus to be leased in its entirety by Google.