51.5 F
Laguna Hills
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024
-Advertisement-

Lease Deals Spur Opening of Clothes, Home Boutiques

A pair of independent retailers has taken advantage of lease deals to open boutiques, despite the bad but improving retail market.

Scave’ngerie Boutique, which sells vintage and antique home furnishings and accessories with a French flair, recently opened on 18th Street near The Closet in Costa Mesa.

Designer Leslie Sykes owns Scave’ngerie and does much of the furniture restoration. She used to own Nikki Twigs, which closed in Costa Mesa several years ago,

The 700-square-foot boutique also sells jewelry and artwork.

Harper’s Boutique opened in December in Corona del Mar. The shop is owned by Erica D. Thomas, who used to own the now closed Erica Dee shop in Corona del Mar.

Thomas was able to open her new store with the backing of investors. Lyndi Kennedy is her main backer.

The 1,200-square-foot store sells brands such as Rachel Pally, Rory Beca and Sharon Segal and lower priced clothes from Alternative Apparel and Fluxus.

Thomas, who named the store after her daughter, opened her first store seven years ago and closed it in 2008 amid the economic downturn.

Dean & DeLuca’s Pullout

It’s official: Gourmet grocer Dean & DeLuca is out at Fashion Island.

John Christensen, spokesman for the Newport Beach mall’s operator, Irvine Company, confirmed speculation of Dean & DeLuca’s Fashion Island demise last month.

New York-based Dean & DeLuca declined to comment. Irvine Co. is looking for a replacement, according to Christensen.

The planned 23,000-square-foot store was expected to be Dean & DeLuca’s West Coast flagship store. It would’ve occupied most of the top floor of a new 83,000-square-foot building at Fashion Island. Dick’s Sporting Goods, which opened in July, is on the bottom floor.

Dean & DeLuca originally was slated to open this past summer. But the company said more extensive expansion plans, including a European bakery, postponed the opening to the second half of 2010.

The grocer has been rumored for months to be pulling out of the mall. Dean & DeLuca’s Facebook page as recently as November was touting the store: “We plan to open our Fashion Island market in May ’10. You can see a rendering of it if you click on the photos tab.”

The company announced plans for a Fashion Island store in 2007.

Luxury Mattresses

Rancho Cucamonga’s E.S. Kluft & Co. has launched a line of luxury beds at Mattress Galleries inside Bloomingdale’s at South Coast Plaza and Fashion Island. The hand-tailored beds go for as much as $33,000.

Kluft sells other lines of mattresses at Sit ’n Sleep stores.

Auto Roundup

Here’s more on the new Foothill Ranch Mercedes-Benz dealership, which opened in December, replacing a Chrysler dealership.

Lorelei Pingree, who also owns Mercedes-Benz of Laguna Niguel, and Pat Bolter are the principal owners. Bill Legg is the general manager.

The 45,000-square-foot dealership has Mercedes-Benz’s Autohaus design, the standard design for new dealerships. Orange County now has five Mercedes-Benz dealers, including Fletcher Jones Motorcars in Newport Beach, the largest Mercedes dealer in the nation.

Mercedes dealers around the county saw a 47% increase in November auto registrations to 670 in November from a year earlier, according to the Newport Beach-based Orange County Automobile Dealers Association.

November registrations—a barometer of sales—saw one of the biggest increases since the downturn.

Rivals BMW and Lexus also saw increases in November registrations. Lexus was up 48% to 500 autos. BMW was up 5% to 473 autos.

Most dealers in the county saw a marked improvement in auto sales for November, according to the dealers association, which recently moved from Costa Mesa to Newport Beach.

Registrations in the county were up 24% to 7,893 in November, versus flat sales for the nation.

In a bit of holiday giving, Tustin Buick, Pontiac, GMC, Hummer and Tustin Nissan gave away a car to the formerly homeless Luengas family, which the Orange County Rescue Mission is helping to get back on its feet.

Want more from the best local business newspaper in the country?

Sign-up for our FREE Daily eNews update to get the latest Orange County news delivered right to your inbox!

-Advertisement-

Featured Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-

Related Articles

-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-