Lab Founder Signs Billabong, Adventure 16 to New Venture

Southern California activewear industry giants Irvine-based Billabong, San Diego-based Adventure 16 and Santa Ana-based Cycle Werks have inked leases to open stores at the Camp, a 40,000-square-foot retail village in Costa Mesa, Calif., that is geared to the outdoor enthusiast. Ventura-based Patagonia will open at the Camp as well through a joint venture with Adventure 16.

The Camp is the vision of former Orange County surfwear executive Shaheen Sadeghi, who had tongues wagging in 1993 when he opened the Lab, his “anti-mall” catering to 16- to 25-year-olds, in Costa Mesa. The retail village is now 80 percent leased and will open in early December.

Part anthropologist, part sociologist and part entrepreneur, Sadeghi sees a cultural paradigm shift occurring, especially in Southern California, as baby boomers seek more spiritual fulfillment and refuse to age.

“They want to see more balance in their lives,” he said. “If they can’t make money, they will pursue travel and discovery.”

That message is what appealed to Billabong, which is launching its first flagship store at the Camp in addition to its five Billabrand outlet stores in California.

“We like the vibe of it,” said Steve Culley, Billabong’s vice president of retail operations.

Culley said the 5,800-square-foot store would showcase Billabong’s complete line, including shoes and accessories by other vendors, as well as a skate ramp. (Two more stores are scheduled to open this year, but Culley declined to comment on their locations.)

Patagonia, which has 23 full-price stores and seven outlets worldwide, will debut a new concept in partnership with Adventure 16. The 3,000-square-foot store, smaller than the typical Patagonia operation, will carry mountain and ski gear; sportswear for men, women and children; and fishing equipment and luggage. It is actually subleased from the 9,000-square-foot Adventure 16 store.

Rich Hill, Patagonia’s vice president of sales, said that unlike a shop-within-a-shop concept, Patagonia will control the presentation, product and entire supply-chain management of the venture, leading to higher profit margins. The company plans to launch 10 of these hybrid stores in the next few years.

“The Camp is one of the freshest ideas in the marketplace, and the timing was right to open there,” Hill said. “We’re anti-mall as an organization—-we don’t shop there, we don’t understand it. We’ve had the best malls come and give us space, but we weren’t interested.”

Hill declined to comment on exact projections for the store but said that Patagonia’s sales trend higher than the outdoor industry average of $300 per square foot.

Rather than create the Camp as a monolithic structure, the architectural firm Bauer and Wiley of Newport Beach, Calif., which created the Quiksilver headquarters, divided the $12 million project into five structurally different buildings surrounding outdoor landscaping in order to appeal to both people who want to shop and those who simply want to linger. The buildings feature corrugated metal, sloping roofs, steel siding and glass entrances. The landscaping morphs from a desert landscape with an arroyo and rocks into a meadow and ends in a grove of redwoods.

Visitors can watch skate demonstrations, test scuba equipment at the indoor pool, and rock-climb and commune with nature at the amphitheater.

“This is a place that should slow you down emotionally,” Sadeghi said. “We want it to be very Zen-like.”

He’s bullish on his sales projections. In spite of this past year’s sales drop at the Lab, which typically brings in $400/square foot, he hopes to hit $30 million in annual sales at the Camp. High-performance bicycles and other top-of-the-line items appealing to a customer’s desire for peak performance will drive sales, according to Sadeghi.

Other Camp tenants include a day spa, adventure travel agency, Guru’s restaurant in a yurt-styled canvas building, and a 3,500-square-foot restaurant developed by Orange County restaurateurs Tim and Liza Goodell, owners of Aubergine in Newport Beach.

Wall-mounted televisions will showcase the Food Network, yoga shows and more activity-oriented fare.

Much of Sadeghi’s philosophy stems from his global and work-related travels to Hong Kong, Peru and other destinations. A Michigan native, Sadeghi studied to be a couturier at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. He worked with designer John Anthony, then changed direction and went into manufacturing. After heading the international division of North Carolina-based VF Corp., Sadeghi became executive vice president of Gotcha International in Irvine in the mid-1980s, and in 1990, president of Huntington Beach, Calif.-based Quiksilver Inc.

Though skeptics point out that Sadeghi’s concept sounds like another retail gimmick, especially as developers scramble for mall alternatives such as lifestyle centers, they do concede it has moved farther along than they expected.

“Those [the Camp’s new tenants] are pretty strong brands,” said Therese Byrne, retail mall consultant and publisher of New York-based Retail Maxim.

Undeterred by skepticism, Sadeghi remains convinced of his new venture.

“Boutique malls are the new power center of retail,” he said.