Merchants in La Jolla Reach Out to Survive

With its palm-lined streets and international reputation as a premier tourist destination, the scenic enclave of La Jolla would seem to be a Southern California retailer’s paradise.

But downtown merchants, struggling to make ends meet in the face of spiraling rents and competition from new suburban shopping malls, are finding themselves in the uncharacteristic position of having to aggressively market themselves in order to stay in business.

Wait a minute. Landmark shopping sites like New York’s 5th Avenue and Beverly Hills’ Rodeo Drive don’t have to advertise. Like a retailers’ Mt. Everest, they’re just there.

But this summer, La Jolla, the jewel of San Diego, is preparing to shed its untouchable image and go to war with regional shopping malls in what several La Jolla merchants have called a battle for survival.

On Friday, planners began readying a radio, newspaper and magazine campaign that will soon spread the word on La Jolla, not only to local residents but to potential shoppers in Los Angeles, Orange County and Santa Barbara.

La Jolla will try to lure convention business from throughout Southern California as well as coordinate with the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau to begin talking up the cozy beach town as far away as the East Coast.

The new marketing strategy also includes plans for a regular shuttle service from the San Diego Convention Center, as well as an 800 informational number to carry La Jolla’s new promotional pitch.

That message will be that the seaside

enclave, with its ocean views and world-class restaurants, is also their best bet for one-stop shopping--with a characteristic touch of class that only La Jolla can offer.

“Our marketing approach is that it’s not just what people buy, it’s the experience they’ll have while buying it,” said David Ish, executive manager of the La Jolla Town Council and a consultant working on the campaign.

“Sure, the malls have taken a chunk out of our business. But we’re not going to sit idly by and let it go on anymore. We have one of the most unique shopping areas in the country right here. Where else can people go for shops and world-class restaurants in this type of setting?”

From now on, La Jolla will be billed as the perfect weekend shopping getaway for Los Angeles-area residents who, according to recent marketing studies, are beginning to frequent the affluent coastal town in greater numbers.

But for most merchants--many of whom say their businesses have too long relied on the tourist couple from Cincinnati or Chicago--a key target will be local shoppers who recently have begun to abandon the neighborhood shopping district.

“No matter how far away our ad campaign ranges, we know that downtown La Jolla can’t make it without the support of local residents,” Ish said. “We’re going to be working hard to get their business back in La Jolla. After all, La Jolla is their town to begin with.”

Merchants say there are many reasons La Jollans are taking their dollars out of town, including the changing American shopping habits that have made the suburban mall the new town square--a social gathering spot for many communities.

Two heavily promoted malls on the edge of La Jolla, University Towne Centre and La Jolla Village Square, now use their six anchor department stores to provide an array of shopping options that downtown proprietors are hard-pressed to rival.

Moreover, in recent years, La Jolla has wrestled with a perceived lack of convenient parking as well as the persistent traffic jams that often knot its downtown streets--problems that have stigmatized the area as one of the toughest places in San Diego County to do business.

Downtown shop owners are fighting a retail vacancy rate that has reached 15% in recent years--largely because of a building boom that has created a glut of retail space. Vacancy notices have become a sign of the times in La Jolla.

A worse sign for many merchants, however, is that rents in the downtown retail district have headed for the sky.

In many cases, brokers said, rents that less than a decade ago were under a dollar a square foot now can go as high as $7 for space on busy Prospect Avenue, the main street in the seaside shopping district. Space at most malls rents for about $1.50 per square foot.

The high rents have taken a toll on many mom-and-pop-type businesses, the service-oriented hardware, drug and family clothing stores that for decades carefully cultivated their reputations in the community, only to be replaced by specialty stores able to pay the spiraling rents.

The trend has given downtown La Jolla the reputation of being more of a sideshow than a legitimate shopping district--a retail area dominated by chi-chi boutiques and overpriced, overly specialized curio shops that cater more to the whims of tourists than the needs of the average American family.

“A lot of people feel that the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker have moved out of La Jolla,” Ish said. “But they’re still here, along with the full-service shops that La Jolla has made its reputation on.”

Although they see downtown La Jolla as part of their competition, area mall managers say there’s room enough in the retail marketplace for everyone. “We’re a super-regional shopping center strategically located in San Diego County,” said Mark Ashton, manager of University Towne Centre.

“La Jolla is the most beautiful city in the world. It has a European atmosphere and a name recognition no shopping center can compete with. They can make more with the tourists than we can--we’re aiming at the suburban market.”

La Jolla merchants, however, are betting that an aggressive advertising campaign will make a point to the public that there are non-tourist bargains to be had in La Jolla. They include deals for the local family, who can still do their grocery shopping there, buy a hammer, fill a prescription, without waiting in a maddening traffic jam or looking forever for parking.

“La Jolla doesn’t have parking problems, it doesn’t really have traffic problems--it has the image of having parking and traffic problems,” said Alexander Bende, owner of Alexander Perfume and Cosmetics, an active proponent of the recent advertising campaign. “That misperception is what we’re going to try to change.”

But, for some reason, La Jolla shoppers insist on parking directly in front of stores, rather than walking as they do at malls, retailers say.

“It’s strange,” Ish said. “People will think nothing of walking past rows and rows of cars at the mall, then walking another half-mile to their store once they get inside. But in La Jolla, it’s like they have to park right in front of the store or it’s inaccessible.”

The new advertising campaign--which will begin this summer and last until the money runs out--will be funded by $200,000 raised through an assessment district that received San Diego City Council approval in April. Under the terms of the Business Improvement District, business owners within a 25-square-block area will be assessed $250 to $350 annually when they renew their business licenses.

Hundreds of businesses will be involved--even hotels, which do not have to maintain business licenses. Service-oriented firms such as attorneys will pay a lesser rate, Ish said.

“It’s based on the perceived benefit that each business will get from the advertising,” he said. “We figured that was the only fair way to do it.”

But several retailers complain that the assessments are unfair to the small-business owners by charging them the same as the big retail chain outlets.

A number of retailers spoke out against the assessment at a public hearing held before the city’s recent vote of approval.

As La Jolla prepares to do battle with the malls, downtown merchants are doing battle among themselves.

“This is garbage,” Annette Jones, owner of Jones Gallery in downtown La Jolla, said of the assessment. “There are large businesses that are getting a free ride on the shoulders of the small man.

“It’s going to drive the small businessmen right out of business, and we’re what gave La Jolla its charm in the first place.”

Jones said several merchants have talked of circulating a petition against the assessment. “This is the easy way to make it look like they’re doing something to make La Jolla look more competitive,” she said.

“But the way I look at it, it’s money right down the drain. It’ll do no good whatsoever. There are other, more practical things we can do on a relatively low budget--such as put up signs on the outskirts of the business district directing shoppers to the parking areas--not throwing our money into the wind.”

Such infighting between merchants has rung the death knell for La Jolla retail associations in the past. Previous voluntary assessment efforts have failed when retailers quickly lost their incentive to pay their own way, merchants said.

“We’ve heard all the complaints before,” said Bende, who was co-chairman of Promote La Jolla, a defunct downtown retailers association. “Merchants complain that they’re not seeing direct results for their money.

“Others complain that they’re paying and their neighbors aren’t. Pretty soon, nobody’s paying. And things go back to the way they were.”

Right now, Bende hopes La Jolla’s latest effort will be the one to begin mauling the malls and make the difference in the retail war.

“I’d just like to see more foot traffic around here,” said the merchant, who sells custom-made perfumes and makeup at his Girard Avenue shop. “We don’t want it to be too low-scale, though.

“I mean, we don’t want to make La Jolla a hoopla town or some kind of Disney-like attraction. But business sure could improve.”