Friday, June 22, 2007
The Barneys Co-op store at The Grove has been such a big success for the Los Angeles shopping center, according to Grove owners Caruso Affiliated, and the developers plan to bring the popular upscale store to its newest development, the Americana at Brand in Glendale, Calif.
On June 19, Todd M. Russell, Caruso senior vice president of retail leasing and marketing, said a one-story Barneys will open when the entire Americana property debuts in April 2008. A representative for Barneys Co-op owner Barneys New York declined to comment for this story, and details about the design of the store and the merchandise it will carry are still in the planning stages.
The Americana Barneys New York Co-op will be the third Co-op store in Southern California. Costa Mesa, Calif.–based South Coast Plaza also is a home to a Co-op store. Barneys is scheduled to open a highly anticipated Barneys New York flagship department store in San Francisco in September.
The announcement of the Americana Barneys Co-op also marks the last phase of leasing for the Americana. Russell said that the 475,000 square feet of retail will be 100 percent leased within 90 days.
The Americana also will be the address of fashion boutiques for Kate Spade, J. Crew and True Religion. It also will be the Southern California locale where the Concept Five store will debut. The boutique is a new store by preppie fashion dynamo Abercrombie & Fitch.
Some Americana tenants, such as book and music store Barnes & Noble, J. Crew, Barneys New York Co-op and Kiehl’s, will be familiar to Grove visitors. The two shopping centers might share 17 percent of their tenants, Russell said. Yet each Caruso property strives to offer something new to consumers where it opens.
Americana did not take or duplicate any tenants from the neighboring shopping center, Glendale Galleria, which is owned by General Growth Properties Inc., according to Russell. “We’re very cautious about overlap in the marketplace,” he said.
The new Americana will offer more retail than the 5-year-old Grove. There will be 75 shops and restaurants at the Glendale-based shopping center, compared to the 60 boutiques and eateries thriving at the Grove. The Americana also will offer 238 luxury apartments and 100 condominiums, which will go on sale when the Americana opens. Sales prices for the living units prices have not been announced.
Caruso Affiliated also has been planning the ambiance of one of its upcoming projects, The Shops At Santa Anita, based in Arcadia, Calif., which will debut in 2010. It will be the biggest Caruso retail project, offering 800,000 square feet of small shops, some of which will be built adjacent to a four-acre lake to be constructed at the shopping center.
Russell said that the Santa Anita shopping center will have a high-luxury ambiance, which will draw some of the world’s finest luxury retailers to open shops there. —Andrew Asch