It's certainly gone downhill, as @Darkbeer1 mentioned in a recent post. But that is because it is currently owned by literally a third-rate owner who doesn't have the capital or influence to get real deals made. The current owner was the third-place bidder in the real estate auction a few years back, and when the Dubai group's financing collapsed and then Bob Jr. got cold feet on spending a few bucks on lowly CM's, the third-place bidder won the auction and got the mall for a steal.
My friends in commercial real estate all say that GardenWalk was massively overbuilt in 2007 right as commercial real estate was undergoing a hugely important shift and Americans radically transformed the way they buy goods and services. Malls are hurting all over America now 12 years after GardenWalk opened with waaaaaay too much square footage.
The conventional wisdom in OC now is that even when the JW Marriott opens, plus whatever the second hotel is and a few hundred timeshare condos are built on top of the parking structure, you could barely have a market for just the first floor of GardenWalk for retail and dining. But that still leaves the entire second floor, which has been abandoned and forgotten for over a decade, to fill with tenants. If Disney had taken over the mall and used the second floor for a "Cast Campus", it would have penciled out to keep the mall afloat.
But as it stands now, GardenWalk has half their square footage that they'll never be able to lease out even when the second hotel and timeshares get built maybe later this decade. The opening of JW Marriott 60 days from now will only help justify what retail and dining already exist in that dying mall. That's assuming Disneyland and/or the Anaheim Convention Center are actually open 60 days from now.
. Will look forward to Spring.....
