Mall 205 Makeover Moves Forward

Fred Bruning doesn’t mince words when describing the current state of Mall 205, the first enclosed shopping center in Oregon when it was built, in 1971.”A dead mall,” said the president of Torrance, Calif.-based Center Oaks Development, which bought the beleaguered property last year in a package deal last year from New York-based First Union Real Estate. “I used to joke that I found the last nickel spent there and it had a buffalo on it.”

Mall 205 is still lacking a pulse, but surgery is imminent. Beginning this fall, a $15 million infusion that includes a completely renovated shell and three new pads fronting Washington Street will add strong new retailers and restaurateurs where now there is old and weak. The changes will displace more than a dozen tenants, but many new jobs will be created, and things will be much improved for those that remain, Bruning said.

Instead of names like Emporium, Montgomery Ward and “a very tired Rite Aid,” Bruning says there’ll be Home Depot, a full-service 24-Hour Fitness and Mars Music, a Tampa, Fla.-based company just beginning to place superstores on the West Coast. Instead of a sea of parking from street to storefronts, Pier One Imports, Red Robin and one other restaurant will add roadside appeal.