The 17th Street makeover in Costa Mesa is nearly done. Nearly.
Building owners and the city have been sprucing up and making the area more pedestrian and traffic friendly. The street has become a shopping hub with boutiques of all sorts, several hair salons and barber shops, other service businesses, coffee shops galore and unique restaurants.
Westport Plaza added snappy store signs to its newly remodeled exterior. A building next to Citibank, at 230 17th St., has finished its overhaul and is in full leasing mode.
The city put in much needed blinking crosswalks and left turn hand signals at busy intersections. Decorative brick lines the intersections. The city also added small palm trees at turnouts. It’s still working on strips of the street.
New stores to open in recent months include Newport 17 Clothing Co., which replaced the pink and black awnings of Crush Clothing Co. Crush moved to the Costa Mesa Courtyards across from Triangle Square. Tr & #233;s Chic Boutique, a women’s clothing shop, moved in around the corner from Yum Yum Donuts, formerly Winchell’s Donuts, in the Mesa 17 plaza.
The Pinch, an art and clothing boutique, also opened across from Clothes for the Soul. Annie Rose, another clothing shop is set to open across from Peet’s Coffee & Tea.
Lola Rouge opened its second Lola Rouge for Kids store next to its Lola Rouge shop at the 17th Street Promenade. It replaced The Bedroom.
Lola Rouge owners Sandy Johnson and sister Debbie Askew, expanded from Costa Mesa to Fashion Island in 2004 and later opened a Lola Rouge for Kids at Fashion Island.
At Westcliff Plaza on the Newport Beach side of the street (technically Westcliff Drive), Pomme Bebe, an organic baby food store opened next to Solutions, a jeans, shoes and accessories shop. Ames on Westcliff, a women’s clothing boutique, is set to open where the Murano glass store used to be.
In the former Diedrich Coffee location, another coffee shop,Boun Giorno Coffee,is set to open and will rival K & #233;an Coffee, owned by Martin Diedrich, Peet’s Coffee & Tea and two Starbucks Coffee stores, making for five shops within a mile or so.
South Coast First for Rolex
Famed status watchmaker Rolex SA is opening its first U.S. store in March at South Coast Plaza near the Carousel Court. Rolex has a repair shop in New York.
The Rolex Presented by Baron and Leeds shop will be designed similarly to its boutiques in Geneva, Rome, Tokyo and Beijing.
Headquartered in Switzerland, Rolex sells its wristwatches through “affiliates,” or authorized dealers. It has 28 dealers worldwide. Other jewelers, such as Royal Jewelers in Newport Beach, which don’t sell enough of the brand to be an authorized dealer, sell Rolex through brokers.
Several Orange County jewelers, including Traditional Jewelers and Blackman Ltd. Jewelers, both in Newport Beach, sell Rolex watches. They start at about $6,000. It has watches such as the Yacht-Master for the yachter and the Submariner for divers.
Baron and Leeds is a jeweler with stores in Palm Desert and Hawaii. Terry Weiner is the chief executive of Baron & Leeds Inc., based in Honolulu.
Fur Boycott
Peta, the animal advocacy group, is threatening a boycott campaign during the big Thanksgiving shopping weekend at Bebe stores. Bebe has become a target because it sells clothing with rabbit fur.
Bebe’s OC stores include ones at Fashion Island and Brea Mall. But Bebe isn’t the only store selling rabbit fur. The fur, which makes sweaters soft, is trendy this year. Abercrombie & Fitch, Ann Taylor Loft and other retailers are also selling rabbit fur items.
A few years ago, Peta took aim at Lake Forest-based Wet Seal Inc. Forever 21, Polo Ralph Lauren and J.Crew also were targeted. Those retailers banished rabbit fur items from their shelves. H & M;, Ann Taylor, Donna Karan and Talbots also have a no-fur policy.
Mazda’s ‘Retail Revolution’
Mazda Motor Co., the Japanese automaker that’s been undergoing a transformation in recent years, is building a new, “retail revolution” dealership in Huntington Beach, its second in Orange County. The other is Irvine Mazda GMC.
Jim O’Sullivan, chief executive of Mazda North American Operations in Irvine, said the new dealerships are part of Mazda’s bid to revive the brand. O’Sullivan spoke recently at an OC Forum lunch at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine.
The new dealerships,there are nearly 95 across the U.S.,are designed to be hard to miss, according to O’Sullivan. They have bright colors, Internet terminals to promote the exchange of information between the customer and salespeople, and open floorspace.
Customers can retreat to the M Cafe, where they can discuss their purchase without a salesperson around.
The dealerships display a Mazda on the second story in what the automaker calls the “jewel box.”
The automaker, which has its sales, marketing and design operations in OC, also has strengthened its brand through its catchy “zoom zoom zoom” advertising campaign, which was created by the Newport Beach office of Southfield, Mich.-based Doner Advertising.
The campaign plays as well in Europe as it does in Asia and North America, he said.
Once Mazda had an ad campaign that worked, it turned its attention to its dealers.
“Where and how you buy it directly impacts your impression of the brand,” he said.
In 2000, only 18% of U.S. dealers solely sold Mazda, he said, “making our retail distribution network the most inefficient in the entire industry in the U.S.”
Mazda has turned that around. Six years later, 51% of dealers are exclusive, O’Sullivan said.
