Beverly Hills, Calif.-While
they say the road to heaven is paved with gold, Beverly Hills opted
for something a little less expensive, granite. Beverly Hills may replace its
pedestrian malls with something a bit less pedestrian. Beverly Hills
administrators who have felt the pinch as the city's opulent
shopping district is getting some stiff competition (South Coast
Plaza in Orange County's Costa Mesa now has every major designer
store or boutique that Beverly Hills exclusively enjoyed in the L.A.
area at one time), are ready to fight back. Pound for pound, dollar
for dollar, the new project may cost shop owners hoping to build in
this trendy district of Rodeo Drive more per square foot as they
become taxed in a plan to get them to pay a portion of the granite
project that is supposed to benefit their bottom line directly.
With a $16-million, two-year streetscape makeover that included new
concrete sidewalks, the shopping district is clean and bright. The
light colored concrete reflects and brightens the shop windows in a
manner that offers a much improved look. Shown in the photo
above (left, bottom), the concrete is by no means elegant, however.
As Nicole Kidman loosely twists her expensive pearls in a black and
white mural on a shop overlooking Cartier across the street, the
ground beneath her feet (not shown) is concrete. Ouch!
City Manager Roderick Wood
announced that Kenoran Sage granite pavers would be a fine addition
and well worth the investment for shop owners in this once exclusive
enclave of shops with nearly every couture or designer name known
internationally. "Places like Las Vegas and Dubai and enclaves
like Vail and Martha's Vineyard and developments like the Grove,
Century City and South Coast Plaza are eroding the base of the
long-established markets and specifically in Beverly Hills," Wood
stated at a Beverly Hills City Council meeting recently.
Some of the shops are less enthused about spending big bucks,
however. The tile looks like something from a shower stall, one
manager said. At $850-per-linear-foot for the granite, property
owners would be required to spend exorbitant sums to install granite
sidewalks when any reconstruction or tenant improvement costing
$250,000 or more was undertaken. Sidewalks could have a patchwork
look to them for years.
Three different shades of mottled granite were proposed by
Beverly Hills city staffers who narrowed their choices to green Kenoran Sage, gray or beige. Finally green was chosen for its
ability to highlight the storefronts with a higher-end look.
Unlike polished granite, the sidewalk pavers would have a
rough surface less likely to cause pedestrians to slip and fall in
wet weather.
Once strictly upscale boutique
shopping for the wealthy, the profile in this shopping region has
changed. Gap, Crate & Barrel,
Cheese Cake Factory and many
affordable mass market stores and restaurants have begun to to fill
some empty spaces between elite boutiques. Customized services (such
as the eyebrow expert who works on the eyebrows of celebs) are
strewn amongst the boutiques and stores, too.
Downtown shopping districts
are more and more interfacing with their city governments with
business development planners who try to increase revenue. In
Huntington Beach, for instance, city officials want to close Main
Street near the beach and turn it into a pedestrian mall. Business
owners who do not agree with what's needed to make a profit, often
find themselves spending more and more of their time taking on their
cities as opponents instead of partners. Whatever the outcome of
these experiments, there's one thing that's clear. Competition has
become tougher for economies seeking greater profits during down
cycles. For many cities, "good enough" no longer works, but
solutions do not guarantee success, either.
