Robinsons-May Getting Repairs and New Stock

The Robinsons-May in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza will celebrate its 46th anniversary in June with a splashier event than store officials had in mind, but one they say is long overdue.

The store was forced to close its doors because of extensive damage from the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake. Recently, a Robinsons-May official announced plans to reopen June 6, not only with structural improvements but new merchandise.

“We took the opportunity to paint the whole store, put in new flooring and replace all of our merchandise,” said Robinsons-May spokesman Jim Watterson. “It was time to improve the store anyway. This is something the community has wanted for years.”

Watterson said heavy water damage and extensive structural cracks forced the store to remain closed longer than expected.

The store had been a May Co. outlet until last year, when Robinson’s and May Co. merged.

“We had to take everything out of the store anyway, so this was a perfect time to do what we had intended to do for a while,” Watterson said.

Two community-based operations that had operated out of the store--the Museum of African American Art and the OASIS senior center--will also reopen June 6.

In the interim, OASIS classes were held throughout the Crenshaw area, including at Christ the Good Shepherd Church, Crossroads Arts Academy and the Delta Sigma Theta Life Development Center.

For merchants with businesses on the mall’s upper level next to the Robinsons-May entrance, the reopening won’t come too soon.

Since the closure, they said, foot traffic has declined, and sales, which had been sluggish anyway, have plummeted.

Fred Bruning, vice president of mall developer and owner Alexander-Haagen Co., said new tenants coming aboard will nearly fill the mall by December. Occupancy now stands at 68%.