Rodeo Drive to Get Euro-Style Street of Shops

Two Rodeo Drive, the largest retail development ever built on the internationally famous shopping street, celebrated its topping off Tuesday.

The $130-million, 26-building shopping complex, occupying a full block at the northeast corner of Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard, has its own private street and will increase the retail square footage along Rodeo Drive by 50%.

Two Rodeo is a joint venture of AMEC-Power-Malkin Partners, which recently acquired the Ambassador Hotel site on Wilshire Boulevard; Stitzel Properties Inc., developer of One Rodeo in Beverly Hills, One Union Square in San Francisco and One Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, and Berisford Rodeo Property Development, a subsidiary of Berisford International PLC of the United Kingdom, which joint-ventured with Stitzel Properties on numerous projects.

Douglas L. Stitzel, president of the Stitzel Co. and the project’s development director, specializes in the development of high-end retail projects.

He said he hopes his Beverly Hills project will capture some of the special allure of time-honored European shopping districts such as Via Condotti in Rome and Bond Street in London.

“We hope to bring to Two Rodeo the same welcoming ambience,” he said, adding that one of the special features of the project is its street plan, which doubles the amount of valuable ground-level retail shopping space.

“Our concept was to create two ground floors through the utilization of a 9-foot grade change from Dayton Way and Rodeo Drive to Wilshire Boulevard,” Stitzel noted.

“By manipulating the floor plan levels, we were able to arrive at a unique rhythm of contrasting buildings on a curving street, to be named Via Rodeo, each having a different tactile architectural element such as terra cotta, limestone, brick and plaster.

Individual Identity

“The building shapes will vary considerably, some will have balconies, others colonnades or awnings that will give individual merchants their own identity,” Stitzel said.

“Store fronts will be further customized to suit the clients’ products and show windows will be not more than 18 inches from the ground to relate more closely to the pedestrian viewpoint.”

Stitzel commissioned Italian artists to create special features for Via Rodeo, which includes street lights, limestone sidewalks, an elevator tower and two restaurants, including a sidewalk cafe.

Mark Scott, director of environmental services for the city of Beverly Hills, said the project received close scrutiny before its final, enthusiastic approval by the city’s Architectural Commission.

“It involved a prime site previously owned by Amercan Savings & Loan that has been the subject of considerable controversy in recent years,” he said.

“First there was the issue about a hotel proposed by the Four Seasons chain that was turned down by Beverly Hills voters.”

Later a group of investors negotiating for the site stirred renewed controversy, Scott said. The project met with considerable public resistance and was also considered by the city to be too minor for such a prime location.

The appeal of Stitzel’s proposal for Two Rodeo was twofold, Scott noted.

“The developer, in this case, had a good track record and showed us a project that lived up to the Rodeo Drive image--also one that was economically sound and architecturally creative.”

Stitzel satisfied the city’s business and governmental leaders with a proposal that provided 132 additional parking spaces above the code requirements (one space for every 350 square feet of retail space), besides its valet parking service convenience.

The city granted Stitzel an encroachment under the Rodeo Drive sidewalk to make the additional parking spaces possible, a concession that will benefit both the developer and the city, since all 600 of Two Rodeo’s parking spaces will be available to the public on the same two-hour free-parking basis currently provided by the city, for the life of the project.

Tiffany to Relocate

Leases at Two Rodeo are from 10 to 20 years and vary from $75 per square foot annually for large spaces to $200 per square foot annually for 300-foot spaces. “This . . . has made (anchor stores) more affordable,” Stitzel said.

The prestigious Tiffany & Co. of New York will relocate from its longtime corner location in the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel to its own building across the street in Two Rodeo shopping complex.

The 17,000-square-foot Tiffany building was designed for the tenant by Brand Allen, a consulting architect for the project, and it is the largest business location outside Manhattan for Tiffany.

Cole-Haan is also a tenant, and a new Giorgio is expected on the site.

The architect of record on the project is Kaplan McLaughlin Diaz, based in San Francisco. Peck/Jones, Los Angeles, is the general contractor.