Good PR Is at Heart of Strategy to Revive Westwood Village
Can Westwood come back?
Some players in restaurants, real estate development, the arts and the hospitality industry think so, to the tune of $200 million and more already invested or being invested in the area’s revival. And business leaders in the 2.5-square-mile area known as Westwood Village have enlisted a PR specialist who has drafted a multitiered strategy to draw attention to the activity.
With Newsweek, People, Gourmet and other national publications reporting on the designer chefs--notably the owner of Eurochow--moving into the area, trend watchers are detecting the formerly moribund heartbeat of Westwood.
It may be impossible to duplicate Westwood Village as the cultural crown jewel of Los Angeles from the 1930s through the 1950s, when the carriage trade shopped, bowled, dined and went to swank movie premieres at the Fox. To be sure, the district still lacks high-end retail stores to attract shoppers, and parking problems remain.
But Westwood is beginning to shake its image as a haven of T-shirt shops, pizza joints and boarded-up stores that people dropped from their itineraries after a Long Beach tourist was killed in gun cross-fire a decade ago.
The media approach targets consumers and trade, locals and travelers.
“It’s a complex interweaving of media,” says Jennifer Barry, who was recruited in spring to handle PR. “Restaurant reviews, travel destination coverage, real estate development profiles, trade coverage . . . to entice retailers and such.”
Barry also develops and promotes such people-magnets as the farmers market, which this month expanded to two days a week instead of just one.
Restaurants are the anchor of Westwood’s comeback effort. Eurochow leads the pack of name-brand designer restaurants that have been drawn to the area. As has been chronicled in the widely reported restaurant opening, Michael Chow spent $4 million to create a two-tiered fantasy space in Westwood’s oldest structure, the Janss Dome Building, built in 1929 at the corner of Broxton and Westwood by the founders of Westwood. Unveiled two months ago, the almost all-white space is punctuated with art by Frank Gehry, Yves Klein and Andy Warhol.
The Hawaiian-influenced Maui Beach Cafe blazed the dining trail 21 months ago, followed by Tanino, Restaurants Inc.’s Palomino Euro Bistro and such low-priced eateries as Denny’s and Native Foods, a vegetarian restaurant.
“I would describe Westwood when I came in as probably the most exclusive shantytown I’d ever been in--boarded-up stores, windows broken, homeless people,” says Maui Beach owner Jeff Knight, whose start-up costs included promoting the area in order to promote his own venture. “We spent over $1 million just promoting Westwood.”
The two high-end “C’s”--culture and cuisine--are at the center of the community’s profile, and its drawing card.
The Geffen Playhouse, beginning its fourth season, brings close to 100,000 people into Westwood Village every year, says theater spokesman Gary Murphy. And the Armand Hammer Museum earlier this year hired director Ann Philbin, credited with part of New York’s SoHo resurgence. The Hammer is mapping out the planned off-campus UCLA Cinematheque, a $4-million, high-tech completion of an unfinished 300-seat auditorium that will screen from the school’s vast film archives three or four nights a week.
“The marriage of the cultural and culinary attributes is one of the key messages we are developing,” says Barry, who helped launch Maui Beach “despite its Westwood location” before she was recruited to promote the entire village.
Missing are retail shops to keep people in Westwood after they dine out or attend a show. Local business owners say that at least a dozen stores have closed in the last twelve months, including Macy’s, Ann Taylor and Wilger & Co., a 43-year-old men’s clothing shop. Empty storefronts mar the view from Eurochow.
Parking is part of the problem. Business owners say construction at UCLA has reduced parking on campus, forcing students to use parking spaces in the Village that would otherwise be available to visitors. And the district’s mix of upscale eateries and boarded-up shops present a confusing image to would-be retailers.
Some business leaders privately say Westwood isn’t yet competitive with such trendy haunts as Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade and Old Pasadena. But the marketing of Westwood is not about spin, officials insist.
“The village is available for inspection,” says Bob Walsh, executive director of the Westwood Village Community Alliance. “On any given day, you’ll see a clean and safe environment, one well-suited to attract businesses.”
Food and entertainment are only part of the new Westwood package, business leaders say. The W Hotel, a $20-million revival of the former Westwood Marquis, opens in November. Starwood Resorts & Hotels, which owns the W chain, used a film set designer, Dana Lee, to whip up such touches as front steps of frosted textured glass and a waterfall lit by fiber optics.
And Westwood’s flagship high-rise at 1100 Glendon, whose dated exterior has been like a dark cloud over the village for years--it’s the building with the Monty’s sign--is finally getting a $35-million face-lift, though no tenants have been announced.
Business leaders are planning a slate of activities to draw visitors and media coverage to spread the word about the new look to the village. They have expanded the popular Thursday farmers market--which has been No. 2 in sales in Southern California--to Sunday, with extensive organic food offerings and crafts activities. Next summer, Westwood will expand Serendipity on the Sidewalk, 100 hours of concerts on Broxton inaugurated with success this year.
“These local programs and activities bring back a community feel that has dissipated over the last decade,” Barry says.
A resurgent Westwood benefits the county, according to Michael Collins, executive vice president of the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, who says that the lifeblood of the new tourism is predicated on the vitality of local neighborhoods, like Westwood, more than on another theme park.
“The millennium visitor is in search of an authentic experience, something with a real pulse to it,” Collins explains. “Los Angeles is an assemblage of neighborhood villages, each with its own character. They uniquely present opportunities for visitors to enter into a world that is organically Los Angeles. Westwood is an authentic part of the Los Angeles brand.”
