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Moviegoers to Get Boot and Perhaps a Designer Dress or Blouse

Bargain-hunting fashion shoppers will be among the winners when a popular La Jolla retail center does some tenant shuffling amid renovations set to take place over the next 18 months, with Nordstrom Rack recently announced as the star coming attraction.

However, the local region’s fifth location of Nordstrom Inc.’s discount store division will be replacing La Jolla Village Cinemas, an aging four-screen movie theater that has long drawn fans of art house independent films to The Shops at La Jolla Village.

The retail center, located at 8801-8879 Villa La Jolla Drive near Interstate 5 — not far from the UC San Diego campus — is anchored by several highly-trafficked retailers including Whole Foods Market and CVS Pharmacy.

According to published reports, some of the center’s current restaurant tenants also will be exiting before the Nordstrom Rack opens in fall 2016. Those include BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, TGI Friday’s and Elijah’s delicatessen, all of which are located next-door or in front of the current theater site. (The La Jolla Light newspaper recently reported that Elijah’s is in the process of relocating to Kearny Mesa).

In its own statement, Seattle-based Nordstrom Rack said it plans to open a new store spanning 32,000 square feet at the La Jolla center. “San Diego has been a great home to us for many years and our new store will help us more conveniently serve those in North County,” said Geevy Thomas, president of Nordstrom Rack.

Nordstrom Inc. last year announced plans to relocate and expand its existing full-line department store in nearby University Towne Center to a new space within the Westfield UTC mall, with a two-level, 145,000-square-foot store expected to open in 2017.

Kathy Giraldo Carlson of brokerage firm Kidder Mathews, which handles leasing for The Shops at La Jolla Village, confirmed that Nordstrom Rack will eventually be replacing that center’s movie theater but deferred comment on other current tenants to representatives of the property’s owner, Alecta Real Estate USA LLC of San Francisco.

The eventual closing of the La Jolla Village theater will leave its operator, Landmark Theatres of Los Angeles, with just two other locations in the local market — at Hillcrest and Kensington. According to the company’s website, the La Jolla theater was built in 1979 and has been operated by Landmark since 1997.

Despite upgrading its sound and projection technology, that theater during the past two years has been squeezed by bigger neighboring cinemas offering similar fare in plush luxury surroundings, including AMC Theatres’ renovated multiplex across the street and the new ArcLight Cinemas at Westfield UTC.

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Local Hotel Development Continues: Mission Valley has seen several big hotel renovations in recent years, but it’s been more than a decade since a brand-new hotel property opened in that neighborhood. The newbie is the 104-room Holiday Inn Express & Suites, developed by locally based Hotel Investment Group Inc., which recently opened at 635 Hotel Circle S.

A spokesman for Hotel Investment Group, which is led by CEO Bhavesh Patel, said the $15 million development cost was shared by the San Diego company and U.K.-based InterContinental Hotels Group, which owns the Holiday Inn brand among others. The eco-friendly hotel off Interstate 8 was built by local contractor Dempsey Construction on a site previously occupied by two abandoned homes.

Also on the hotel front, San Diego port district commissioners recently approved the design concept for a 400-room hotel project to be built on the southern portion of the former Lane Field ballpark site in downtown San Diego. Targeted to begin construction in late 2015 or early 2016 after branding and other elements are finalized, officials said the project includes an approximately 200-foot-tall tower with meeting space, spa, top-floor skybar and terrace, and visitor-serving retail and restaurant space.

The developer, a partnership known as LPP Lane Field LLC, is already at work on a 400-room, dual-branded Marriott hotel project, under construction on the north side of the Lane Field site.

• • •

New Arrivals on Real Estate/Retail Scene: The latest residential addition to master developer Sudberry Properties’ growing Civita mixed-use development in Mission Valley is Apex, consisting of 58 single-family detached houses built by Ryland Homes. Developers said Apex recently opened with prices starting in the high $700,000s.

In Point Loma, locally based comic book publisher IDW Publishing has opened its new San Diego Comic Art Gallery at 2765 Truxton Road, adjacent to its new headquarters at Liberty Station. Starting with an exhibit of the works of Kevin Eastman, co-creator of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” the gallery is among several new attractions set to open this year at the former Naval Training Center.

Send commercial real estate and development news of general local interest to Lou Hirsh via email at lhirsh@sdbj.com. He can be reached at 858-277-8904.

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