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It takes a village

By Maura K. Ammenheuser

Developers modeled The Commons at Calabasas, an upscale center near Los Angeles, after an Italian village.

There’s nothing like a pretty face. Good looks certainly helped lure retailers to The Commons at Calabasas, an 11-month-old, 200,000-square-foot village-style shopping center 30 minutes west of downtown Los Angeles.

And the attractive atmosphere seduces shoppers, too, say developers of The Commons.

“You’ve got to give people a reason to get out,” especially in Calabasas, where many people live in gated communities, said Rick J. Caruso, president of Caruso Affiliated Holdings, a private real estate investment company in Santa Monica, Calif.

“...And basic human nature likes a pleasant environment,” he added.

Caruso’s creation includes about 40 shops and restaurants nestled amid a man-made lake, waterfalls, sculptures and benches. A 65-foot brass domed Rolex clock tower punctuates the center’s roof line.

Marketing materials describe the center as an Italian village, where walls are coated with a limestone-based French plaster, terra cotta tiles top the roofs and paths wind between stores, plazas and shaded courtyards.

It cost $40 million to build The Commons, and rents are high, up to $250 per square foot, Caruso said.

Why bother with such elaborate, and expensive, aesthetics?

“You’re trying to give people a reason to come to spend money,” Caruso said. The ambience gives The Commons’ customers “a sense of ownership, a sense of community pride,” he said. “It became their place, their hangout.”

The environment keeps people lingering at The Commons, Caruso said. The goal is to keep people there at least three hours per visit. Shoppers in the upper quartile spend an average of 84 minutes at a regional center, according to ICSC research.

Longer visits mean more sales. That’s why Caruso Affiliated emphasizes art and ambience at many of its developments. The company has 35 projects in the United States; its Southern California centers include Encino Marketplace and The Village at Moorpark.

But looks alone can’t sustain a center. Caruso’s other secrets: building in wealthy, established, but underretailed areas intimidating to other developers, “so we avoid competition down the road,” Caruso said.

Calabasas fit the bill.

Annual household income there averages $125,000, according to Charles Cate, city manager. Some 40% of the residents are college educated and at least a third of them have children, making them big spenders. And while several malls are 15 to 20 minutes from Calabasas, the city itself didn’t have much retail, Caruso said.

Today, The Commons is completely leased and sales average $700 per square foot for soft goods, according to Caruso.

It lacks a traditional anchor but boasts a mix of “daily needs” retailers, as Caruso put it, such as Ralph’s Signature Series Grocery and Rite Aid pharmacy; entertainment, in the form of a six-screen Edwards Cinema; and restaurants and upscale merchants such as Barnes & Noble, Imaginarium, Gymboree and Starbucks Coffee.

“I’m very happy I went in,” said Steve Polacheck, who runs Polacheck’s Jewelers, which leases 2,000 square feet of retail space. The Commons is his largest store and his first outside a mall; he’s had jewelry shops in Sherman Oaks Mall and others for decades.

Selwyn Yosslowitz, a partner in Marmalade Cafe, which has 4,500 square feet at The Commons, said he opened there because his restaurant has done well at Westlake, another Caruso center.

“Rick is an incredible developer, with incredible taste,” Yosslowitz said. Some colleagues worried that the Calabasas site would eat into profits at Westlake, but that hasn’t happened, Yosslowitz said. He expects the Calabasas site to top $1,000 per square foot in gross sales, besting the Westlake location by $1.2 million this year.

Calabasas residents like the place now, but they weren’t always enthused about the development. Caruso says he was willing to compromise with residents and civic leaders to pull off his project after previous developers weren’t.

The first development planned for the site, about 10 years ago, was a 1.5 million-square-foot office and retail project, city manager Cate explained.

But residents objected to such dense, large-scale building, among other things.

Several developers and proposals later, Caruso arrived on the scene and asked local movers and shakers what they wanted at the site.

Their answers: a small, luxurious theater, a bookstore and attractive landscaping, among other concerns.

Caruso says that’s what they got. However, he put his foot down about parking. Residents wanted parking hidden behind the stores, he said, a layout that doesn’t work well in suburbs. The center’s 1,500 spots are in view in front of the stores.

The Commons is “very popular,” Cate said. “This has become our downtown. This has become our core.”

Freelancer Maura K. Ammenheuser covers a variety of issues for SCT.