Tenant at Promenade in Woodland Hills sues Westfield Corporation

WOODLAND HILLS, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The Village at Westfield Topanga promises to be a shiny, brand new $350 million shopping center -- the pride of the Westfield Corporation.

But just a half-mile away, Westfield's Promenade in Woodland Hills is not so shiny, not so new and Yossi Kviatkovsky will tell you it's definitely not the pride of the corporation.

"It's blighted and it's dead," he said.

Kviatkovsky owns The Rack, a sports bar and billiard's club that's called The Promenade home for the last 10 years. Over that time, he says Westfield has neglected the mall to the point where occupancy is only around 20 percent and shoppers are practically nonexistent.

"On Black Friday, you could have shot a cannon through the mall and you would have hit nobody," Kviatkovsky said. "If you go down and take a picture right now, you'll see a homeless woman with a homeless cat sitting right by the escalator, and that's typical of what we get on a daily basis."

Kviatkovsky says Macy's is just one store in a long list of stores that have bailed on The Promenade. The space the department store used to occupy remains empty.

The mall is so empty that Kviatkovsky says he doesn't even keep the door to the mall from his bar open because no one ever walks through it. Kviatkovsky says he's locked into his lease at The Promenade for another 10 years so he's suing Westfield.

A spokesperson for Westfield Corporation told Eyewitness News the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.

As the tenants leave and storefronts go dark, Kviatkovsky says he understands why the company is less than eager to talk.

"I think even Westfield is ashamed of this center because they took the Westfield identification off all the signs," Kviatkovsky said.