Century City Center Redeveloper in Dealmaking Mode
Retail
by Deborah Belgum
Major changes are afoot at the Century City Shopping Center, which has undergone several metamorphoses since it opened in 1964.
The biggest news is that the long vacant Dive! restaurant, an eatery started by movie moguls Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg and whose interior looked like a submarine, has a new occupant.
Gulfstream Restaurant, a new concept being launched by Houston’s Restaurants, will open sometime this fall. Gulfstream is a casual seafood dinner restaurant with oversized menus printed on brown grocery-bag paper and a selection of seafood and comfort food. So far there is only one other Gulfstream Restaurant in the chain, located in Newport Beach.
Another newcomer to the Century City mall is Louis Vuitton, which is moving into a store near Macy’s department store. Construction on the store will begin in February and an opening is scheduled for late spring.
Other changes are afoot at the mall, bought in 1999 by Urban Retail Properties Co. of Chicago.
Michael Levin, Urban Retail’s executive vice president, said the center would be renovated by adding 70,000 square feet and finding more upscale tenants like Louis Vuitton.
The mall’s owner is in lease negotiations with Gelson’s Market to occupy a new building fronting Santa Monica Boulevard at the northeast corner of the center. The center could then be reconfigured to add more stores. “If Gelson’s goes ahead with the move, we will convert that southwest corner into a more traditional mall. The layout back there is a little awkward,” Levin said.
The Crate & Barrel store might expand into a super store. Williams-Sonoma is also considering moving to the mall.
Brentwood Addition
Maybe the third time is a charm. Trader Joe’s plans to expand into the barn-like Brentwood Country Mart at 26th Street and San Vicente Boulevard, taking over the 10,000-square-foot space occupied by Bristol Farms until October 2000.
Bristol Farms, after buying the lease from Brentwood Farms in 1999, stayed only 13 months. Executives at the El Segundo-based gourmet food store chain said they needed a bigger space to accommodate its wide selection of gourmet goods and wines and to have an inside caf & #233;. They were looking for a bigger space in the area.
But 10,000 square feet is about the average size of most Trader Joe’s markets, which makes Brentwood Country Mart a good fit.
“We hope to open before the end of the second quarter,” said Pat St. John, Trader Joe’s vice president of marketing. “We think it’s an underserved market.”
Currently Brentwood residents have to drive to Santa Monica or Sherman Oaks to shop at a Trader Joe’s.
Store executives are applying for a liquor license so they can sell beer, wine and alcohol. Even though most mart stores close at 6 p.m., Trader Joe’s will operate its usual 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. hours.
Travel Pulse
For the last year, David Sheatsley, the research director of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitors Bureau, has been trying to put together a monthly newsletter that provides a quick economic glance at the hotel and tourism business in Los Angeles.
He wrote a similar newsletter when he was senior vice president and chief operating officer for the Virginia Tourism Corp. and was surprised L.A. didn’t have one.
He finally succeeded. He is now publishing “Travel Pulse,” which has short descriptions and graphs outlining the economic progress of such things as museum and attraction attendance in L.A., passenger traffic at Los Angeles International Airport, hotel occupancy rates, and average daily room rates.
“People are very hungry for this information, especially after Sept. 11,” the research director said.
The newsletter is being sent to members of the LACVB. In the next few weeks it will be published on the bureau’s Web site, www.lacvb.com.
Tidbits
Still no word on who will take over the Rizzoli Bookstore space at Two Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The departure of the Italian shop means there is no major bookstore left in Beverly Hills The Yankee Candle Co., based in South Deerfield, Mass., signed a lease on Dec. 31 to move into a 2,000-square-foot space at Sherman Oaks Fashion Square. The candle store, which sells candles in about 125 scents, will open in June, said Ruth Otto Tewalt, the shopping center’s general manager.
Staff reporter Deborah Belgum can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 228 or at
[email protected].
Grocery Chain Growing
Whole Foods Market Inc. is expanding rapidly on the Westside with three new markets opening this year.
The Texas-based chain plans to open a new store at the corner of Third Street and Fairfax Avenue across the way from the Farmers Market in late March or early April. The opening will coincide with the debut of the new Grove at Farmers Market shopping center.
The Whole Foods Market will be housed inside an old Albertson’s supermarket that closed several months ago.
“Our demographic study shows that this could be our highest volume store because of the density of residents in the area and the higher level of education,” said Elizabeth Carovillano, a company spokeswoman.
A second Whole Foods is slated to open in mid-to-late summer at the corner of Weyburn and Gayley avenues on what is currently a Mann’s cineplex theater in Westwood.
A third store is being built from the 30,000-square-foot structure that used to house Madame Wu’s Garden Restaurant at 2201 Wilshire Blvd. in Santa Monica. That market opens sometime in September.
All three will have pizza ovens, coffee roasters, aging rooms for meat and bulk seafood as well as the usual selection of health foods and organic produce.
Deborah Belgum
