What a tentatively encouraging sign it was to pick up the Pasadena Star-News paper this morning (Saturday, Oct. 21) and see an ad from the Westfield Santa Anita mall indicating that they appear to have actually listened to complaints from Arcadia residents and their mall customers relative to their horrendous parking situation.
The ad says that in response to suggestions, Westfield Santa Anita will add more parking spaces and add a new perimeter road to ease congestion, both in time for the holidays, and, "coming soon," will introduce a "car count" system in the parking structure. (A car count system is what Caruso Affiliated put in its parking structure at The Grove years ago to let drivers know where there are empty spaces. It won't help make the lanes at the Westfield Santa Anita structure wider or create any more spaces or eliminate the labyrinth on the second level that winds around rooftop air conditioners, but it will hopefully cut down on drivers aimlessly wandering the structure looking for a spot and creating worse congestion in the process.)
Unfortunately, after so many unkept promises from Westfield each time the company expands the mall, and after so many misleading and self-serving ads, many of us have become quite skeptical and cynical about the words of Westfield. The ad is, at the very least, convenient timing just two weeks before the election they created for an issue over potential parking fees at Caruso's proposed Shops at Santa Anita next door to the Westfield Santa Anita mall. And it is interesting that this is one of the few ads that is only a half-page as opposed to the numerous full-page ads it buys to promote its Caruso/Shops at Santa Anita-bashing campaign.
It is the terrible parking at the mall that has many of us so anxious to see a new mall with the kind of forethought to ease-of-parking and the kind of commitment to state-of-the-art technology that Caruso has exhibited at The Grove.
The parking at Westfield Santa Anita is atrocious. It alone is what often deters many of us away from shopping or eating at the Westfield Santa Anita mall. The parking structure has such narrow driving lanes that it is hard not to trade paint with another vehicle even when simply driving on a straight part of the lot, let alone making one of the many turns. The deceptive diversion to more parking on the second level near the AMC and Dave & Buster's over the rooftop and around the air conditioners is absurd as there is little additional parking, what is there is at awkward angles, and the road often leads to nowhere and requires trying to turn 180-degrees in a confined away while other drivers stacked up behind you are about to encounter the same situation. None of the necessary directions are clearly marked, and neither are the entrances or exits in any part of the structure.
The open parking surrounding the mall is like a sea of cars that will have you dog-paddling for as long as 10 - 20 minutes trying to find a vacant spot before you give up and leave. It appears that many of the best spots are taken by cars parked by the valet services on both sides of the mall.
It's convenient for Westfield Santa Anita to claim they offer free parking when in fact they make the free parking so painful to utilize that many people wind up paying for the valet service, which they manage to make much more convenient at the expense of the drivers trying to find a free spot anywhere within the same area code.
We would like to believe the ad in the newspaper, that Santa Anita is truly going to listen to its customers and do what it should have done in the first place and create a more acceptable parking situation so we can all enjoy our experience at the otherwise pleasant mall.

Scott Hettrick
founder, Arcadia Wins!