Designing a New Look : Fashion Island Is Broadening Its Appeal
Conventional wisdom holds that to understand a society’s ideals one must look at what it builds on its highest ground.
In earlier times, a castle, cathedral or seat of government might have been on such a spot. In late-20th-Century Orange County--perhaps indicative of what the area holds most sacred--what occupies a hilltop above Newport Harbor is a shopping center.
Newport Center Fashion Island today celebrates 25 years of catering to the affluent. When John Wayne’s pooch needed a clip, this is where his master brought him.
Hit hard by the recession, however, the shopping center is being forced to broaden its appeal. Its owner, Irvine Co., has charted a path intended to bring the not-so-rich to the largest of its retail centers.
To do that, the shopping center is trying to draw customers to its stores and sidewalk vendors that charge moderate prices. Half of the women’s wear retailers in the center now fall into that category. It is also adding well-known discounters: a Bookstar bookstore and a Circuit City electronics store that, ironically, will sit near a Brooks Bros. fine men’s wear store.
The shopping center is also trying to appeal to the young. A Hard Rock Cafe is being built in the parking lot in the hope of drawing teens and youngsters. Ditto for the Cheesecake Factory, which is taking the place of a defunct Rex restaurant.
Such a strategy shift is not without risk. By reaching out to those of moderate means, the center may alienate the very shoppers who have made it a success. Whether the wealthy who arrive in Mercedeses will bristle at having to rub elbows with the family station-wagon crowd remains to be seen.
But the president of the retail division of Irvine Co. is convinced that, as shoppers realize they can serve virtually every shopping need at Fashion Island, they will be less likely to go elsewhere.
“The customer is leaving Newport Beach to buy the same products,” Frederick O. Evans said. “We would like to be the town center of Newport Beach.”
That goal, as laid out by billionaire Irvine Co. owner Donald L. Bren, would mean transforming Fashion Island into a one-stop center with a wide assortment of stores.
Other shopping centers might fit that bill. Fashion Island competes with the successful South Coast Plaza, which opened seven months earlier in 1967 and is just up the road in Costa Mesa. The new Triangle Square center in Newport Beach plans to open in time for the Christmas shopping season this year and to offer not only trendy stores but also movie theaters and an upscale grocery store. And the lucrative South County trade will be lured in the next few years by major expansions and remodeling of the Laguna Hills and Mission Viejo malls.
But Fashion Island has capitalized on the fact that it was an outdoor, park-like center at a time when other malls were strictly indoor affairs. Irvine Co. has spent more than $100 million in the past decade upgrading the center, adding not only stores but also movie theaters and dining areas. Its only indoor shopping, the Atrium Court, was redone for $6 million two years ago to reduce the size of its Farmers Market and add shops and eateries. With its fountains, ponds and open areas, the shopping center now has a sun-swept look and feeling.
As Bren explained Thursday in a rare interview, “We set out to create not just a shopping place, but an experience. . . . We redesigned Fashion Island with a strong Mediterranean theme, which is the theme that we believe has a timeless type of atmosphere to it.”
That was not always the case. When Fashion Island opened in 1967, it could have been found in any suburb. It had a JC Penney, the Broadway, Buffums and Robinson’s as its anchor stores. As Newport Beach grew more affluent, however, the shopping center did the same. To its department-store roster it added I. Magnin and Neiman Marcus, and it assembled an impressive collection of designer shops.
The ocean-side location, scenic as it is, has limited the center’s growth as a regional center, though. Fashion Island is several miles from the closest freeway.
“One of my customers said, ‘Why did you lease in that center? Half of your customers are fish.’ I said, ‘Yeah, but at least they are quality fish,’ ” said Dick Braeger, who runs Gary & Co. menswear and J.B.’s Sports Deli with his son John.
Quality fish, indeed. While only 3% of Orange County residents think of Fashion Island as their primary mall, they have tended to spend more time (an average of nearly three hours a trip) and dollars (average $111 a trip) than at any mall except South Coast Plaza, according to a 1991 survey.
Leslie Hastings has lived in Tustin for 10 years but never ventured to Fashion Island until last week. She liked it.
“There’s a lot for kids to do,” she said as sons Adam, 8, and Austin, 6, frolicked around a fountain. But for shopping, she said, she has always found everything she needed at MainPlace/Santa Ana.
“If I just wanted to come to a mall to stroll, this is where I’d come,” she said. “But I don’t go to the mall to stroll.”
Others who do not shop there do patronize the restaurants, though, which include such well-known names as Tuttu Mare, the relatively new Daily Grill and the acclaimed Five Feet Too.
Some think that food has become the center’s chief attraction.
“What’s it going to be?” asked one real estate specialist familiar with Fashion Island. He then answered his own question: “The world’s most grandiose food court. That’s where people are jamming in there. It’s mobbed for lunch. People even go there for dinner.”
The mall’s managers and retailers are counting on the restaurants, the new retailers and ambience to draw more patrons like Hastings and to keep them coming back. Whether their mission is to shop at Circuit City or peruse music memorabilia at Hard Rock Cafe, the theory goes, they won’t be able to resist peeking at the mall. And if they like what they see, they will come back.
“The changes have been real positive,” said Lula Halfacre, who operates Traditional Jewelers with husband Marion. “The variety will be good for the community.”
