In 2011, a California hotel owner refused to sell to a $400 million shopping complex; so the city nearly took his 55-room hotel instead

Most shopping malls don't come with a villain or a holdout. This one had both. According to the Los Angeles Times, which covered the opening of the Americana at Brand in Glendale in 2008, the outdoor mall cost over $400 million to build. What that piece could not have reported is what happened three years later when the owner of the mall wanted to expand. Next door was a little family-run hotel. Its owner said no. Then began a real fight over land, money and legal power that few shoppers ever think about.

A $400 million mall opens its doors

The Americana at Brand opened on 2 May 2008 in downtown Glendale, a city north of Los Angeles. The mall was built by the developer Rick Caruso, who was renowned for his previous project called The Grove. The Americana included stores, restaurants, apartments, condominiums, as well as a park that featured a musical fountain. The completed mall, which covered 15.5 acres, ultimately housed 75 retail stores such as Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble, and an 18-screen movie theatre, according to SAH Archipedia, the Society of Architectural Historians' peer-reviewed compendium of American buildings.

The hotel next door stood in the way

Just to the south of the mall, and located on West Colorado Street, was the Golden Key Hotel, a relatively small 55-room hotel, which belonged to Ray Patel. Caruso was interested in the land because he wanted to expand the Americana. In January 2011, the Los Angeles Business Journal reported that Caruso Affiliated had already secured the vacant 7,500-square-foot building from Henry David, but the hotel dispute remained unresolved because owner Ray Patel had refused a $6 million offer, which Caruso said was 22 percent above market value. The article also says the combined site would enable a 140,000-square-foot expansion of the 475,000-square-foot mall, with the issue headed to the Glendale City Council on January 27.

The offer, the refusal, and eminent domain

The same Los Angeles Business Journal report said that Caruso bid $6 million for the Golden Key Hotel, which was 22 per cent above its market value at the time. Mr. Patel rejected the offer. That mattered because the hotel was located in a redeveloping area in Glendale. Under California redevelopment law, that gave the city council the right to take the land under eminent domain, as long as Patel was paid fair market value in return. The Business Journal report said the issue was slated to be heard by the Glendale City Council on Jan. 27, 2011. The mall had roughly 475,000 square feet at the time, and the expansion was planned for 140,000 square feet, the same report said.

What eventually happened to the hotel

Patel didn’t hold on to the Golden Key forever. According to reporting at the time, Patel agreed to sell the hotel to Caruso Affiliated in February 2011, and it was subsequently demolished. The same source reports that a 130,000-square-foot Nordstrom department store was built on the site and opened in 2013. The hotel does not still stand today, hemmed in by shops on three sides, as some retellings suggest. It was bought out and torn down, as many small, independently owned motels have been along American commercial strips, replaced by larger developments.

Why one small hotel dispute still matters

It's really not a story about one hotel. It offers a look at how American cities can use redevelopment law to remake whole neighborhoods. In America, redevelopment laws allow local authorities to declare a certain block as needing development and use eminent domain in assembling the land for a privately owned development project as long as the owner is paid the market price for the land. The SAH Archipedia article notes that the Americana complex was first conceived in the mid-1990s as part of a public scheme known as the Cooper Report, well before the Patel hotel had become a matter of debate. The mall has continued to grow. In 2015 Caruso Affiliated bought more property across Brand Boulevard, including the historic Masonic Temple, which was renovated into office space and reopened in early 2016.

The bigger picture for today's shoppers

For readers who grew up browsing malls just like this one, it’s worth remembering that the shiny plazas, fountains and fairy-lit trees don’t usually come out of nowhere. Often they sit on land bought or negotiated for or, in some cases, nearly taken by the force of law. For months, Ray Patel held his ground against one of Southern California’s biggest developers, backed by a redevelopment law that could have forced the issue. He did sell, after all, but for a time, the outcome was uncertain.

Next time you walk through a shopping district, it may be worth asking who was there before and what it took to clear the land.