Tour gives peek at Americana

Trailed by a flashing media horde, Americana at Brand officials offered sneak peeks Tuesday of the highly anticipated 15.5-acre development as construction workers laid the finishing touches on buildings and store interiors.

Along the way, guides pointed to an array of amenities and luxury components they say make the Americana more of a five-star resort than an outdoor mall with apartments and condos.

“I feel like I’m on a Disneyland tour,” said Rick Caruso, president and chief executive of Caruso Affiliated, the developer of the Americana at Brand, as project architect Dave Williams carried a portable speaker and microphone.

And with the auburn wooden trolley operated by two uniformed conductors circling the megaplex, as Tom Jones and Frank Sinatra croon from a soundtrack on repeat, Americana guests may also feel that way at the Friday grand opening.

George McGinnis, a retired industrial designer for Walt Disney Imagineering, designed the open-style, two-car trolley that was built by the Iowa-based Gomaco Trolley Company, which specializes in authentic trolley construction and restoration.

The leisure ride snakes around the whole development on tracks that follow a grassy, landscaped green belt, past the almost 2-acre public open space known as “the Green” and an elaborate “dancing” fountain that, when it erupts, invokes Vegas-like glitz.

And towering above the park space, looking down on the stores, the trolley, the restaurants and the crowds, are what make the Americana different from other Caruso developments: 238 apartments and 100 condos.

If the ground-floor retail experience borrows from the likes of Walt Disney, the New Orleans French Quarter and Newbury Street in Boston, the residential component of the project is perhaps closest to Caruso’s attempt at delivering a five-star resort.

Residents have walk-out access to a glimmering lap pool, shaded by Royal Palms and equipped with poolside lounge chairs and a communal stainless-steel grill mounted into a granite counter top.

A short walk from the pool is an indoor fitness facility for residents.

One model apartment, furnished by Caruso Affiliated to show prospective renters, boasts views of downtown Los Angeles and the tips of the Santa Monica Mountains over Griffith Park.

The apartments were designed so that no two units would be exactly the same, said Williams, vice president of architecture for Caruso Affiliated.

“We also tried to create neighborhoods within the development of no more than 20 to 25 units,” Williams said.

One-bedroom apartments start at $2,160 per month, and two-story town homes cap off at $5,480 per month.

The project is on track to open Friday, and while most retailers appear close to completing their interiors, a few storefronts look far from ready.

One storefront still had drop cloths and tools littering an unfinished concrete floor, but a memo posted on the door to contractors said a final cleaning detail was set for 1 a.m. later this week.

“They’re all supposed to be ready Friday,” said Meredith Red, a company spokeswoman. “There’s no Plan B.”