Eight years after it opened in a former department store, the first Wal-Mart in Los Angeles the 142,000-square-foot outlet at 8333 Van Nuys Blvd. in Panorama City has received a massive makeover. Over the past four months, crews have added a new color scheme, new products and new departments to the two-story structure. “Everything from floors to ceilings to new paint to wider aisles,” said Joel Barrios, the Panorama City Wal-Mart’s manager, a day before the grand re-opening Nov. 3. Barrios explained that the remodel, which happened while the store remained open, dealt with both aesthetics and technology. Workers introduced additional signage in both English and Spanish, remodeled the restrooms and redesigned the store’s color palate, which now features mellower earth tones. While the store’s square footage remains the same, its layout was reconfigured to make way for a new apparel department and expanded electronics, housewares and grocery departments. New flooring was installed. Lighting was improved. On the technology side, the latest self-check scanners were added, along with a new wireless department known as the “Connection Center.” The changes turned what was dark and cramped into an open and bright space enough to receive accolades from both the store’s 350 employees and its daily customers even before it officially re-opened, Barrios said. “They just stop right in their tracks,” he said. “It gives them a better shopping experience. They just love it.” As part of the upgrades, Wal-Mart is donating $7,500 to area organizations including Rotary International and North Hollywood-based Computech for Humanity. The Panorama City rollout is part of an overall push by the Bentonville, Ark., discount retailer to improve 1,800 of its stores, said spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien. The store No. 2568 for Wal-Mart opened in 1998 at Macerich’s Panorama Mall in what had been a The Broadway department store that closed two years earlier. It was then the only multilevel store in the company’s roster and one of its first efforts to introduce the Wal-Mart nameplate in an urban surrounding. Until the 1990s, the chain built stores mostly in rural or suburban areas. Today, Wal-Mart operates five outlets within Los Angeles city limits.