Bullock’s Store Will Probably Be Razed

The 23-year-old Bullock’s department store in Northridge Fashion Center, reduced to little more than a pile of rubble by Monday morning’s earthquake, will likely be demolished, experts said Tuesday.

If the store is rebuilt, construction costs could run up to $28 million, they said.

The cost to replace damaged or destroyed merchandise inside the store was not known. But even if the rebuilding process were to go smoothly, with no legal or zoning delays, it would take six to eight months to reopen the store. That would mean millions of dollars in lost revenue for Los Angeles-based Bullock’s and its parent, R. H. Macy & Co. in New York.

“It looks like it’s going to have to be completely rebuilt,” said Dave Keim, a principal building inspector with the Los Angeles Building and Safety Department.

The department store was completed in 1971, before enactment of stiff building codes prompted by the devastating Sylmar earthquake that year.

“Today, you couldn’t build this building exactly the way it was,” said Franklin Lew, a state building inspector from Contra Costa County who looked over the Northridge Bullock’s on Tuesday in an information-gathering effort. In addition to rebuilding within current seismic codes, he said, other features such as access for the handicapped and improved energy conservation would have to be included.

Conforming to current earthquake codes would probably account for about 2% of the total construction cost, he said.

The department store might have collapsed, Lew said, because the tile walls used in some buildings of that era tended not to be attached securely enough to the floor and roof. Also, he said, the precast concrete used does not tend to allow the steel and other metal in buildings to stretch during an earthquake--causing something referred to as “brittle failure.”

Lew said he saw similar problems in buildings destroyed during the 1989 Bay Area earthquake and the 1964 Anchorage, Alaska, earthquake.

The architecture firm Ellerbe Becket Inc., which designed the building, could not be reached for comment.

Merle Goldstone, a spokeswoman for Bullock’s, which owns the building, would not comment on the extent of the damage or the retailer’s plans. She said a statement would be issued by the company today. “At this point, we’re just trying to assess things.”

Goldstone also declined to say if Bullock’s has earthquake or other insurance that would cover costs of the damage.

Rob Edwards with GAB Business Services, an adjuster for Macy, was outside Bullock’s on Tuesday, but said he didn’t know what the company’s insurance would cover. He said he couldn’t even get inside the building to inspect the damage, but noted that the destruction appeared to be “the worst I’ve seen.”

Bill Holmes, a San Francisco structural engineer who inspected the collapsed store for the structures reconnaissance team of the Earthquake Research Institute, a private organization of engineers, seismologists and geologists, said the 190,000-square-foot store would probably cost between $100 and $150 per square foot to rebuild, or a total of up to $28 million.

“It’s an expensive loss, that’s for sure,” he said.

Scores of gawkers with video and still cameras lined the sidewalk outside the mall, and cars slowing for passengers to look at the toppled store caused traffic tie-ups on Tampa Avenue. A few police officers even stopped to have their pictures taken in front of the store.

The building itself was a tangled mass of steel and concrete, with large parts of the second and third floors caved in. From a short distance, a jumble of red Bullock’s shopping bags could be seen inside. The only merchandise visible was in a cabinet, teetering on the edge next to where the second floor fell in, containing pots and pans and marked with the sign “Tools of the Trade.”

Concrete and drywall lay on the sidewalk outside, where the falling debris had knocked down trees.

Northridge Fashion Center General Manager Lloyd Miller could not be reached for comment.

The mall remained closed Tuesday while the extent of damage to the shops was being evaluated.

Although Bullock’s and areas of the mall parking lots were the only structures that collapsed, other parts of the shopping center--which also houses J. C. Penney, Sears, Broadway and two Robinson’s-May department stores--also sustained some damage.

The mall is one of the most financially successful shopping centers in Southern California. With total retail sales of $337 million, it was the fifth largest mall in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties in 1990, the last year for which figures are available from the State Board of Equalization.

But John Lyda, development director at Topanga Plaza in Canoga Park, where stores will be closed for between two weeks and three months while repairs are made, said the earthquake couldn’t have come at a worse time for retailers.

“These poor people have weathered the recession. Now there’s this catastrophe,” he said.