YOU ARE HERE : Mall Caters to the Traditional Tastes of Area

The Christmas decorations at the Galleria at South Bay are what you’d expect from the region’s most uptown mall. Suspended from the skylight, gilded cherubs hover over the escalators, bearing holiday festoons of pink and green.

Duane Bishop was doggone proud of those decorations. The mall manager figured they struck just the right balance of elegance and holiday cheer. But just days after the work crews had finished installing them, a shopper called to complain: Why weren’t the festoons red and green?

The anecdote, told by Bishop with an accepting, live-and-learn shrug, reflects more than the persnickety nature of the Galleria’s customers. The South Bay, Bishop observed, has a strong bent toward the traditional--particularly the part of the South Bay that shops at Bishop’s Redondo Beach mall.

Opened in 1985 as a $70-million renovation of the decaying and then-28-year-old South Bay Center--the region’s oldest shopping center--the Galleria says a lot about middle- and upper-middle-class suburban life along the coast. In this mecca for beach-loving singles, for example, women’s clothing stores outnumber men’s apparel outlets by more than 2 to 1, and one of the most popular Galleria outlets is the studio offering “boudoir” portraits, where patrons can be photographed in lacy undergarments and feather boas.

The average Galleria customer, Bishop said, is a 38-year-old white woman with a white-collar job and no children. On a typical visit, surveys show, she will browse for an hour and 18 minutes, visit about three stores and spend about $72.

Far-out, Melrose Avenue-type clothing doesn’t seem to sell well among women at the Galleria, Bishop said. More popular, he said, are the stores that sell the sort of dresses a woman could wear at the office and the sort of underwear she could find on a centerfold.

One thing a shopper won’t find at the Galleria is a place to park the kids. Bishop said a child-care center was tried shortly after the mall opened, but it went virtually unused and folded in less than a year.

The South Bay, Bishop said, retains an economic mix, and the Galleria reflects that, too. Thus, there are valet parking attendants and pricey outlets for designers like Laura Ashley and Ralph Lauren and the only Nordstrom in the South Bay. But Mervyn’s is a mall anchor, there are the ubiquitous Hickory Farms cheese logs and Orange Juliuses, and business is booming at the bowling alley.

Over the last few years, Bishop said, the Galleria management has been “re-merchandising” the mall, replacing unsuccessful stores with those more aligned with local tastes. So far, the strategy seems to have been successful: Taxable retail sales have grown steadily each year, and in the last six months, nine new stores have opened.

Bishop acknowledges, however, that 1991 may not be as profitable as years past and said the Galleria was fortunate to have signed its nine new retailers before the economy fell into its current slump.

GALLERIA AT SOUTH BAY, REDONDO BEACH

Year opened: 1985

Retail square footage: 950,000

Anchor stores: Nordstrom, May Co., Mervyn’s

Number of stores: 160

1989 sales tax paid to city: $2.4 million

% of city’s sale tax revenue: 32%

Memorable features: Vaulted skylights, a massive fountain, valet parking.