Up and out: Developers are eliminating escalators in mall conversions

Los Angeles developers have been repurposing massive shopping malls to attract more tech friendly tenants, and one of the most prominent features of those properties to get the heave-ho are escalators.

Brookfield has removed 24 escalators from the Fashion District’s California Market Center as part of a creative office conversion of the 56-year-old building, according to the Los Angeles Times.

“The idea of getting on escalators like you did in the 1950s and ‘60s is not happening,” Brookfield Properties’ Bert Dezzutti told the Times. “People desire to move around and be untethered.”

Brookfield is replacing them with stairways that will lead to indoor bridges and decks. It is also trashing the glass curtain walls on the building to create open-air spaces.

Hudson Pacific Properties and Macerich are doing the same at the former Westside Pavilion shopping mall, which the duo is converting into a massive office space for Google called One Westside.

The new space takes advantage of the mall’s open layout and opens it up further with a glass façade and open office spaces.

HPP CEO Victor Coleman believes large FAANG-type tenants — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google — will commit to their campuses for the long haul, occupying them in perpetuity like a university. [LAT] — Dennis Lynch