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July 11, 2011· scvtalk.com · WordPress (SCVTalk 3.0) · Wayback capture

iSee an Apple Store & a sad Town Center Drive

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

Coming to The Patios, just as I predicted:

As a total geek, I’m thrilled we’re getting another electronics retailer in the SCV. One less reason to leave the valley, one more way to say “iThinkSCV.”

But as a guy who’s built a career on Windows and as a veteran of the PC/Mac wars since the 1980s, I’m so tempted to do this to the display now in the Patios:

An embedded YouTube video appeared here in the original post. View the original — embeds are preserved as links in this archive.

On another subject, does anyone else get a tiny-bit depressed walking around Town Center Drive these days? It used to be the new hotness in town. I remember when they tore up that entire section of the city. Anticipation was high for Town Center drive….it was to be our Third Street Promenade, or Colorado Avenue, a ped-friendly shopping & entertainment nirvana. Remember how cool Edwards & stadium seating was compared to the original Edwards!

And now? It’s just so vacant. Even Coffee Bean has abandoned Town Center for the Patios, which indicates that that’s where the people are. What remains are a few high-end clothiers (from my perspective anyway), chiropractors, a plastic surgeon (whose tasteful Town Center-facing ad shows an attractive woman’s bikinid breasts above the text, “Invest in Your Assets”), a wine bar, a cigar shop, and a few once-was-hot-but-no-longer restaurants (with the exception of Maru).

What happened to Town Center? Is it just the economy that’s got the place down in the dumps? Will it bounce back? Or did it never take off like Newhall Land intended it to? Is SCV -or more specifically Valencia- not compatible with the whole urban shop/live/walk/eat ideal? If the city had shelled out $20m in corporate welfare for a Nordstroms, would that have made Town Center Drive a roaring success? Or does Town Center drive prove that SCV is thoroughly middle class and would prefer to shop at a Ross or Kohl’s before hitting up high-rent shops?

Town Center Drive tells us something about the SCV market, but I’m not sure what it is.

Comments (21)

  1. Jane DJuly 11, 2011 at 3:34 pm
    Maybe Nordstrom was upset that no one in the SCV knows how to say their name? In my experience, Awesome Town likes to think it is a big spender, but folks complain all the time about everything being too expensive, maybe because they’re shelling it all out for their mortgages(s) and late model expensive cars.
  2. CastaicClayJuly 11, 2011 at 5:31 pm
    Parking is inconvenient at best and I hear rent is high. Does NLF think too highly of themselves?
  3. LindaJuly 11, 2011 at 7:03 pm
    Depressed? I think Town Center Drive makes a fine filming location for NCIS. And the twinkling lights are pretty at Christmas time. I would never be there at all if it weren’t for the movie theater and the fact that I have a teenage daughter.
  4. CCJuly 11, 2011 at 7:32 pm
    People avoid town center drive because the parking is a pain. So much for mixed use. But maybe it will work in Newhall.
  5. MikeJuly 11, 2011 at 8:21 pm
    I was scratching my head at “wmv.mov”, which turned out to be Did you hear Robert Scoble on TWiT a few weeks back? The way he was talking, he made it sound like you and JB were the lone holdouts. Anyway, I agree 10X on Town Center Drive. Part of it really works, but it’s otherwise disjointed. They promised a lot, but the design is all screwy, so I doubt Westfield harbors any romantic notions. Seems like a “redevelopment” candidate once the money rolls in. The Patios on the other hand works much better. It’s still a damn shame we don’t have a 1st (or 2nd) rate coffeeshop, but maybe the influx of Mac users, what with their better taste in everything, will be the catalyst to make great things happen.
  6. VenturanJuly 11, 2011 at 10:20 pm
    Holdout? On what? iPhone? It may prove to be the answer in the end. I’m not sure. Lots of folks are forcing a collective “trough of disillusionment” with Android (me included). Apple’s been in the game longer, perhaps went through that period already and I’d argue is enjoying its “slope of enlightenment,” which kicked off with the offering on Big Red. As someone once said… Tech is like religion. The only thing we can agree on is everyone else is doing it wrong. So in that vain, I’m coming around to the JMW non-dogmatic school of tech…which stunts the value prop of an offering, and therein lies the rub.
  7. MikeJuly 11, 2011 at 11:48 pm
    Scoble, a former Microsoft employee, was remarking how at any gathering of tech movers, the rooms are Mac-only. Many departed MSFT execs are now known to use the Trash instead of the Recycle Bin.
  8. MikeJuly 11, 2011 at 11:50 pm
    Oh to clarify, I speak of Windows, the myspace of operating systems. Every time I go back to it, it’s just as I left it. #wizards
  9. VenturanJuly 12, 2011 at 7:04 am
    Mac OS X … what’s your over / under on how much longer Apple will improve it? First they dropped enterprise storage, then Xserve – and now their former ‘crown jewel’ Final Cut is a town joke. It’s a niche platform. I think their eyes are on the greener pastures they’ve created with iOS. If OS X does stick around, it’d be strictly for halo & nostalgia purposes.
  10. ToddJuly 12, 2011 at 7:41 am
    Agreed. iOS is the future of Apple. Jobs even said in the WWDC keynote that they believe people are moving away from the computer (hence why iOS 5 will no longer require connection to iTunes system to upgrade, can all be done on the handheld). My bet, They’ll make MacBook Airs, and Mac Minis run on the iOS and possibly a version of a standard MacBook. The MacBook Pro, the iMac will be gone, and the Mac Pro will be ultra high end professional systems only. If Apple was smart, they’d get out of the PC hardware business altogether and stick to handhelds. I love running OSX on my Dell laptops (dual boot, of course). Runs great, and is just about as stable as my MacBook was, and is 1/10th the price for hardware!
  11. ToddJuly 12, 2011 at 7:44 am
    To clarify, they’d get out of the hardware business but keep up with OSX, and make it as cheap as Redhat ($49/year for the personal user)
  12. MikeJuly 12, 2011 at 8:15 am
    10.6 is $30. 10.7 will be $30 for up to five users ($6 a seat!)
  13. JeffJuly 12, 2011 at 7:59 am
    How hard is to to Hackintosh? I’m down to try it out. Don’t you have to modify the BIOS or you need to have a PCI with EFI?
  14. ToddJuly 12, 2011 at 1:47 pm
    There are certain systems that, out of the box, work. Although I did have to get a different wireless card to make my Dell work. http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page (BTW, Apple store opens 10am Saturday)
  15. MikeJuly 12, 2011 at 8:14 am
    That “niche” is the 98% of users that would never have use for an Xserve or Final Cut Pro 7. It so happens that I use both, but that’s another story. OS X is getting a major upgrade later this week – for $30! What a deal.
  16. rnddudeJuly 12, 2011 at 8:07 am
    Well, I can speak from experience, have had a store on Town Center Drive for 7 years before moving it to a more productive site. We were on the “west” side, by far the more attractive side, but it still didn’t overcome the two biggest obstacles: Sky-high rent and a lack of convenient parking. Granted, there are two public parking structures on the west side, but they are so hidden that most people do not know they are there. On street parking spots are few. One of the final straws was when the entire first floor of the primary parking structure was reserved for the Hyatt’s valet use only. That’s right, VALET! It’s is real important that the valet boys don’t have to run up a flight of stairs to retrieve the Hyatt customers cars, thus causing them to have to wait an additional 30 seconds before they depart awesometown. The store attrition rate on that side of McBean has been huge. Plus the management company for the units is a giant PIA. Oh, less I forget, in the summer, the street is blocked off early afternoon on Fridays to set up for the Jazz Concerts, totally klutzing up access to the shops, and effectively killing all business on those days. I could go on….
  17. ToddJuly 12, 2011 at 1:49 pm
    Aside from the first floor being reserved for valet parking…. I’ve never had a problem parking to go to Town Center drive. I’m usually parking in the structure behind Buca Di Beppo, or the one behind BJs. No problems at all. You wanna see parking problems, go to West Hollywood.
  18. VenturanJuly 12, 2011 at 1:59 pm
    I think he is referring to Town Center on the other side of McBean – the west side.
  19. SaugushomeownerJuly 12, 2011 at 9:47 am
    “Coming to The Patios, just as I predicted.” Really? I guess all the articles saying it was coming there and the big sign out front didn’t help you make that prediction. Easy to predict something when the sign is right there.
  20. MikeJuly 12, 2011 at 9:55 am
    SCVtalk broke the story in early February, long before any signs or published reports: http://scvtalk.com/2011/02/07/february-7-2011-daily-brief/
  21. BladzeeJuly 13, 2011 at 11:20 am
    Love that Apple is putting a store in Valencia. As mentioned in your previous thread, it’s bigger news than most observers would imagine. People flock from all over So Cal to go to the Northridge store and I expect similar traffic to this Valencia store. It’s a huge win for SCV that should not only bring in more local business to its retailers, but also contribute to the notion that Valencia/SCV is “the place to be” for home shoppers. As far as Town Center drive is concerned, I would have to largely agree. A lot of the retailers come and go on a regular bases. The gripes I hear from them is almost entirely about the cost of rent. The management group needs to understand that all of the retailers are in it together. They sink or swim based on the collective success of each other. If we can’t keep a strong gathering of stores intact, I fear that we will see more decline in shoppers and foot traffic that you mention.

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