Area’s oldest shopping center reinvigorated

Business update



RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Whizin Market Square in Agoura Hills is a well-known shopping center, but it’s more than just that. The city’s oldest retail venue has been around for decades, longer than the city itself.

Eight years ago the more than 100,000-square-foot center received a major face-lift, and while most of the work is finished, efforts to modernize, yet maintain the property’s historical appeal continue. Many longtime residents view the more than half-century-old collection of buildings and the iconic clock spire in the middle as a Conejo Valley landmark.

Businessman Bill Tucker and his Calabasas-based Tucker Investment Group purchased Whizin in 2007 with an eye on giving the aging shopping center new life. Tucker said he’s currently in talks that would bring a new restaurant, wine bar and more retailers into a mix that already includes a collection of stores that sell vintage home goods, tasty treats and upscale flea market finds.

Growing pains are being felt.

“It’s a work in progress, we’re always improving it,” Tucker said. “There’s never an end, I guess. We want to upgrade it with some artwork too, start putting in things like that. It’s just an evolution (of the space).”

PLAY GROUND—Whizin Market Square in Agoura Hills has undergone a resurgence in recent years, but some tenants would like to see more done. The Canyon club, above, remains the biggest draw. Acorn file photo

PLAY GROUND—Whizin Market Square in Agoura Hills has undergone a resurgence in recent years, but some tenants would like to see more done. The Canyon club, above, remains the biggest draw. Acorn file photo

The upgrades accomplished by Tucker Investments include a redesign of Whizin’s old arcade hall, now known as the market hall.

Hugo’s, a popular family restaurant inside the hall, closed its doors last November citing difficulty from the Woolsey fire.

More work to be done

Easily, the center’s most recognizable business is The Canyon club, the popular dinner and concert venue that hosts a variety of year-round musical acts and community functions. Built in 1973 just prior to the addition of the arcade hall, The Canyon has remained mostly untouched over the years except for an occasional interior redesign.

The Agoura Hills Canyon is one of six eponymous clubs in Southern California owned and operated by New York native and current Thousand Oaks resident Lance Sterling, 56.

LANDMARK—Above, the Whizin market hall interior, renovated in 2011. At right, The Canyon club and familiar clock tower on top.

LANDMARK—Above, the Whizin market hall interior, renovated in 2011. At right, The Canyon club and familiar clock tower on top.

The club opened in 2000 and immediately struck a chord with the area’s middle-age demographic who welcomed the opportunity to see top acts in their own community without having to venture to Hollywood or downtown L.A.

No question the Agoura club hit a home run with local music fans—and helped give new life to popular old acts such as Foreigner, the Zombies, the Yardbirds, Peter Frampton, Pat Benatar, Marshall Tucker, Eddie Money, Blondie and others. But while his company continues to reach new audiences across the Southland, Sterling says he’s disappointed that Tucker didn’t deliver on his promises for the Agoura Hills Canyon.

Given his druthers, Sterling would have purchased the Whizin center himself when it went up for sale in 2007, but he says he was outbid.

While the owners have improved the rest of the center, they’ve mostly neglected The Canyon, Sterling told The Acorn.

Photos by RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

Photos by RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

“I negotiated a lease where they were supposed to flip the building, so the entrance was on (Cornell Road), that they’d spend $100,000 fixing it up, redoing the bathrooms, fixing our roof,” Sterling said.

“The landlord made it out that the city didn’t want that to happen,” he said, because they would have had to repair a road leading into the parking lot.

Tucker said in the meantime his company is planning to resurface the center’s parking lot and introduce valet service for when the big acts bring big crowds.

“We like having (The Canyon) there and I think (Sterling) likes being there, so it’s in our mutual benefit to have him stay,” Tucker said. “He’s an anchor.”

The Canyon’s lease has one more option to renew for five years. After that, Sterling said, the future remains uncertain. Sterling said his Agoura Hills club is the most expensive one to operate, but that doesn’t mean he wants to move it. Because it’s his first, the Agoura Canyon club lies closest to his heart.

“I’ll decide (what to do) in five years. The problem is, if we were staying then we’d remodel our equipment, and spend a million dollars on sound and lights,” Sterling said. “But because we don’t know what’s going on (with the promised improvements), and no one seems to care if we’re there or not, I don’t know what our future is going to be there.”

Over the years

The shopping center is named after Art Whizin, who bought the raw land in 1954.

Whizin, his son, and Whizin’s business partner, Vance Moran, opened a 12-stool hamburger stand and gas station on the site adjacent to old Route 101 that ran north and south through the local valleys. In 1955, Whizin’s team added a rodeo arena, which was replaced by a dirt motorcycle track a few years later. The first row of buildings was constructed in 1962. The Canyon and its arcade were built in 1973 and 1974 respectively. Agoura Hills became a city in 1982.

Upgrading the historically significant shopping center is tricky—going too far would erase the character that has made the space so well-loved by the community, but Tucker felt the marketplace needed to be modernized.

In work that was completed in 2011, the Whizin interior was totally remodeled and given new skylights, water feature and surface treatments. The aging tower clock was replaced and the interior arcade shops were given a fresh new look. Work continues on the center’s southern end where a collection of eclectic, artisanal shops offer a variety of retail opportunities.

Christine Deschaine, senior vice president of Kennedy Wilson Brokerage, which manages the Whizin leases, said part of the center’s charm is that there are no major chain stores or franchises in the mix. Its character remains unique, inexorably linked to the area’s Old West roots.

“We don’t have some of the bigger anchors, the regional or national tenants, we have tenants that have been curated just for the Whizin Market Square,” Deschaine said.

“We want people to come in and get what they want. Aside from that, we’d like to bring in more neighborhood-serving retailers, (the kind of) stores that aren’t already represented there.”

Whizin Market Square is at 28914 Roadside Drive in Agoura Hills. Some stores are open seven days a week, but hours may vary.

John Loesing contributed to this story.