The biggest mall operator in the country, Westfield Group, has donated $75,000 to a local nonprofit to fight a shopping center proposed by a Los Angeles-based developer for the shores of a Carlsbad lagoon.
This means a lot more money will be spent on the battle for Measure A, a special election in Carlsbad to see if the voters want a new upscale shopping center to be built by Caruso Affiliated and anchored by Nordstrom, on the Agua Hedionda Lagoon.
Westfield cites analysis it has done of the lagoon-front project, showing traffic and environmental impacts greater than Caruso’s analysis revealed.
Westfield said it is contributing the money because it has spent millions on complying with California’s environmental laws and doesn’t want to see those laws circumvented by using the initiative process.
Many Carlsbad residents support the Caruso project. Arnie Cohen said Westfield had never invested enough in its Carlsbad mall, and has now sold out. In November, Westfield sold its Carlsbad location for $170 million to New York City-based developer Rouse Properties.
“Westfield has abandoned Carlsbad,“ Cohen said. “They essentially turned their back on Carlsbad, and now they want to try to determine where we get to shop. They don’t want us shopping in our own city, they want to force us to go to their projects, go down the road to UTC.”
Caruso and the Carlsbad City Council have accused Westfield of financing the opposition, but until now, the opposition group, Citizens for North County, has denied getting any support from the corporation.
Standing at Caruso’s new information center on the site, and backed by project supporters, Caruso Vice President Matt Middlebrook talked about his company’s history with Westfield.
“Westfield has a very long and consistent track record of backing local groups, often phony front groups, that they create in order to kill competition,” he said.
In this case though, the opposition, nonprofit Citizens for North County, has raised $18,000 on its own to collect signatures for the special election. That’s compared to more than $5 million Caruso has already spent to promote the project.
DeAnn Weimer of Citizens for North County said the group is grateful for the money from Westfield.
“We are now about $5.2 million shy of an even playing field,” she said.
Westfield has also provided graphics of what the new project might look like. Caruso Affiliated has focused on artists' renderings of the 85 percent of the property that would be maintained as open space.
The special election on Measure A will be held Feb. 23.
