Calabasas Man Finds a Commons Denominator

It’s easy to hate shopping center developments. They pave over bluffs and meadows, they bring us standardized chain stores that only a stockholder could love and they beckon noisy, noxious traffic.

That’s why I long cursed the idea of a major shopping center coming into Calabasas, the suburban hideaway straddling the southwestern edge of the San Fernando Valley that my wife, two kids and I have made home for a decade.

For years, a pristine sliver of the Santa Monica Mountains was set aside for a retailing development in the community. It was a chunk of nature that some locals--myself included--hoped would never be sacrificed for the sake of commerce.

Then again, this is Southern California. So eventually, a 200,000-square-foot project was approved, construction crews mercilessly flattened the hillside, and many of us weak-kneed environmentalists figured, oh well, a convenient shopping center might not be so bad after all.

I never figured I’d end up thoroughly enjoying the place. But that’s just what happened. And therein lies a small story of how, at least every once in a while, commercial development actually can change a community for the better and make it more livable.

In this case, the development, which opened in mid-November, is known as the Commons at Calabasas. It’s an open-air, faux-European plaza aimed at upscale shoppers that winds, more or less, in a semicircle and includes man-made streams, fountains and sculptures.

It also features a king-size Barnes & Noble bookstore, an “on-steroids” version of a Ralphs supermarket and a fancy six-screen Edwards movie theater, along with the obligatory Starbucks and various other shops and restaurants.

Until the Commons arrived, Calabasas was an extreme example of what so many communities in California are: places without a core. To be sure, it had luxurious homes, highly regarded schools and even a semi-famous pet cemetery on the outskirts of town. On Saturday mornings, the city’s pleasant but tiny Old Town area comes to life with a farmers’ market. Still, there was no “Main Street” where people could mix every day.

But a type of Main Street--albeit a posh suburban version--has come with the arrival of the new shopping center. People who before would see their neighbors only when picking up the kids at school or jogging around the block now bump into them while strolling on the Commons’ broad walkways. (At a brisk pace, it takes about five minutes to walk the length of the plaza.)

Visitors can sit at one of the many outdoor benches and chairs, sip a drink and watch the folks walking by.

“It’s conducive for kids. There are things to see,” said Ann Michael, a Calabasas mother with two young children, referring to such attractions as the streams and sculptures. “We’ve gone there just to walk around, and we wouldn’t do that at a traditional mall.”

Rick Caruso, the Santa Monica-based developer and owner of the Commons, said that before his center opened, “Calabasas had never jelled.” He added that Calabasas may have been particularly hungry for a community hangout because so many city residents are secluded in high-income, gated neighborhoods.

Yet Caruso, currently planning a $100-million development alongside the historic Farmers Market in Los Angeles, said his “community center” concept can also work in densely populated, lower-income neighborhoods, which often are ignored by chain retailers. “If you produce something very nice, safe and clean, it will be the designation of choice,” he said.

At the Commons, the Barnes & Noble has emerged as essentially the town’s main library. True, the city has a real public library. But even when it moves into expanded quarters next month, the library will be a 4,000-square-foot operation, awkwardly located in the city’s northwestern corner. The Barnes & Noble, by contrast, is a two-story complex encompassing 23,000 square feet. There are tables where you can read or write term papers, with reference books nearby. Teenagers meet there to hold study sessions--and ogle each other. The profit from coffee drinks and snacks sold in the store’s cafe helps underwrite the study hall operation.

In December, the Commons gave Calabasas a venue for holiday season programs. That’s no small matter for a young, growing city. Although Calabasas has an estimated 27,000 souls, only one religious institution--a small church--owns a home in town.

Yet Calabasas Shul, a small but spirited congregation of observant Jews that meets weekly in an elementary school, led a Hanukkah celebration at the center that drew 2,000 to 3,000 people.

Earlier, just before Thanksgiving, a community tree-lighting ceremony attracted another ample crowd.

Meanwhile, on a regular basis, shoppers find less need to head off to Woodland Hills or other neighboring communities to buy daily staples. And movie enthusiasts can catch a flick without navigating the Ventura Freeway.

This is not meant to lavish too much praise on Calabasas and its Commons. The community remains a suburban playground that is disconnected from the raw excitement and challenges of real urban life.

As my Times colleague T. Christian Miller pointed out in a front-page report last month, developers have bent the rules in Calabasas and other Santa Monica Mountains communities to put up more new homes than planners ever intended; time will tell how much environmental damage and traffic congestion could arise from the continuing home-building projects and office and retail developments.

Meanwhile, though, a budding sense of community has emerged in a town that has had almost none. And if you stroll around the Commons on a typical day, the closest thing to a grievance you are likely to hear is something along the lines of: “Why don’t they bring in another restaurant like Chili’s or a clothing store like the Gap?”