El Cajon working with owner of Parkway Plaza to revive struggling mall

City leaders in El Cajon are turning to residents to help guide the future of Parkway Plaza. In collaboration with the mall’s ownership, officials are leading outreach in an effort to reimagine the space and get ahead of declining retail trends.

This is part of a larger movement by developers to reimagine shopping centers across San Diego County.

While the city will not be in charge of the actual redevelopment, leaders wanted to lend a helping hand to the mall’s ownership by researching the needs of the community to incorporate into the final plan.

City staff’s early proposal would redesign the mall into a mixed-use site for shopping, housing, social gathering and transit access.

A reimagined and highly trafficked mall would benefit El Cajon’s economy, Senior Management Analyst Nate Prescott said, which led city leaders to help out in the process.

“People just aren’t shopping the way they used to,” Prescott said. “The city wanted to be proactive and try to help with redevelopment. We really can’t afford for there to be a giant vacant 81-acre lot in the middle of our city.”

Beyond outreach efforts, Prescott said the city will lead environmental review efforts after a blueprint is approved, in hopes of reducing costs for mall ownership.

Positioned on an 80-acre plot, Parkway Plaza is El Cajon’s largest shopping center and was the second indoor mall to open in San Diego County. Opened by Westwood in 1972, its anchors were a 285,000-square-foot Sears store and a 110,000-square-foot May Co. store, separated by a hundred small retail stores.

Both of the founding anchor stores have since closed. A two-story Walmart that had opened at the mall in 2004 was shut down last year, leaving JCPenney as the only remaining anchor store.

Starwood Capital Group lost ownership of Parkway Plaza in 2020 after defaulting on Israeli-held bonds. It was then purchased by the current owners, Pacific Retail Capital partners and Golden East Investors.

The mall’s current vacancy rate is 3.4%, according to a recent investment report.

City officials want to avoid Parkway Plaza becoming what is known informally as a “dead mall,” Prescott said.

The city is conducting outreach to determine what the community needs most from the shopping center, he said.

“We thought that if we could do some of the research to figure out what the most successful puzzle pieces would be in that area and give it to the property owners, they would have much less of a hurdle in making something successful there,” Prescott said.

Part of the plan is aimed at curbing misinformation surrounding the future of the mall, Prescott said, such as a rumor that it would be demolished for new housing developments.

The outreach effort is still in the early stages. The city collected input from hundreds of community members at its annual Hauntfest on Oct. 17.

Of 221 comments from event attendees, the top themes listed in order of the number of requests include: Walmart to be brought back to the mall, a playground, a carousel, safety concerns, increased variety in stores, kid-friendly spaces and events, increased dining and entertainment options, affordable sit-down restaurants, green spaces and parks.

Storefront vacancies within the mall have contributed to safety concerns among mall attendees, Prescott said.

Kit Gil, a longtime resident of El Cajon, said he shares concerns that the sense of safety has decreased at Parkway Plaza in recent years.

“They need to step up security patrol in the parking lot and make it known that they’re on the lookout, I think, to give people a sense of safety,” Gil said. “I was just there Monday night and there were groups of people hanging out in cars blasting music — not shopping — just smoking and listening to music that was uneasy walking to my car alone.”

The city should squash rumors that the shopping center is closing, he said, because an increase in storefront closures has deterred shoppers from visiting the mall at all.

Gil said he hopes to see the return of affordable family-friendly restaurants and toy stores. He also said he hopes the carousel will make a comeback.

Dan McGeorge has worked in a building near Parkway Plaza since its prime. He wants to see the addition of recreational opportunities in the shopping center, such as a pickleball facility.

“The sky’s the limit there, and including courts that could also host tournament-level play would be a tremendous, money making addition,” McGeorge said.