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By Jorge Casuso

January 31 -- On the eve of shutting down for a major remodel, Santa Monica Place was eerily empty Wednesday night, the tall metal columns, pathways and skylights Frank Gehry designed a quarter century ago silently awaiting the wrecking ball.

Only a few merchants, hanging on inside the nearly empty mall, waited for a stray shopper to wander down an empty corridor lured by a going-out-of-business sale.

By midnight Thursday, they will all have to be out, as the Macerich Company prepares to tear the roof off of the indoor mall, add a third-floor food court with ocean views and connect the struggling venue to the thriving Third Street Promenade.

“It’s a happy moment,” said Randy Brant, the Macerich official who shepherded the project through. “Santa Monica Place needs a rejuvenation and revitalization.”

During the reconstruction, which is slated to be completed in fall 2009, Macy’s and the two public parking structures totaling nearly 2,000 spaces will remain open and crews will work to assure easy access to the site.

“There will be a little bit of disruption, but we’re going to do it in a way that’s staggered,” Brant said.

During some of the work -- such as creating a new entrance at Broadway and the Promenade -- “you’ll have to walk around the disruption,” Brant said.

But as is the case with renovating a home, which Brant is currently undertaking, the temporary disruption is well worth it.

“It’s just an ugly mess, but if I don’t do this, I can’t have all of the good things I want to have,” Brant said.

The “good things” at Santa Monica Place will include an open air center court and quality stores Macerich officials hope will transform the enclosed traditional shopping venue into a modern, open-air retail and dining destination.

The few merchants left in the two-square-block structure Wednesday night had hopes of returning to the new improved mall.

“I will come back if they give me a space ,” said Dr. Subhash “Bob” Chand, who owns the Mrs. Field’s Cookies outlet in the mall. “I would love to come back. I love Santa Monica. I like the people.”

But Chand, a Hindu actor who won second place in a Jay Leno look-alike contest and played the doctor in the Tom Cruise movie “Vanilla Sky,” turned to his father’s favorite saying when asked what would happen to his store.

“Customers and death can come any time,” said Chand, who might join a daily service for actors and look for work in commercials and television series.

Downstairs at the Shoe Care store he has run in he mall since 1999, Dimitri, who only gave his last name as “The Great,” was tearing down the machinery used to repair shoes.

Until the mall reopens, he’ll devote all his time to the store he has in the Westside Pavillion, Dimitri said.

“I’ll come back to whatever they give to me,” said Dimitri, adding that business has been down since 9/11. “It will be nice. The new mall will be newly done. People will come here because it’s new. . . Competition is good”

Chand and Dimitri will have to compete with the boutiques and stores that will be vying for a space in the remodeled mall that will retain the two anchor department store buildings -- one of which has yet to be leased -- and maintain the existing building height of 56 feet, while slightly reducing leasable square footage to some 540,000 square-feet.

Macerich is currently in negotiations with a retailer to take over the old Robinsons-May anchor retail space and expects to make an announcement in the coming months, Brant said.

Macerich officials hope to lure "a new high-quality mix of retail offerings,” said Bob Williams, the company’s senior vice president in charge of leasing in a statement last month.

“We've heard from many of the world's top retail names that this is exactly where they want to be," Williams said.

Thursday’s closing will mark the end of an era for Santa Monica Place, which an up-and-coming local architect named Frank Gehry designed when indoor malls were all the rave. Shortly after opening its doors three decades ago, the successful venue siphoned shoppers from Third Street.

But the tables began turning in 1989, when Santa Monica officials launched the Promenade, and soon the once thriving indoor mall was losing shoppers to the wildly popular outdoor venue.

Taking action to stem the trend and cash in on the Promenade’s success, Macerich officials proposed an ambitious plan two years ago to replace its struggling indoor mall with an outdoor shopping venue topped with three 21-story condo towers, an apartment building and an office complex.

After failing to win the support of the City Council, the mall’s owners explored other alternatives and decided on a much more modest mall remodel that calls for removing large portions of the roof and connecting the mall to the Promenade.

The plan also calls for demolishing a portion of Parking Structure 7; creating a stronger pedestrian orientation at Second Street, Fourth Street and Colorado Avenue, and creating an open-air dining area on the third floor.

As part of the remodel, Macerich has agreed to improve the streetscape on Colorado Avenue and the sidewalk paving on Second and Fourth streets and upgrade the elevators and staircases in the two City-owned parking structures attached to the mall.

The design capped a comprehensive public input and outreach campaign that won over the support of the community, though some worry the new, improved mall could bring more traffic to the area.