Costa Mesa-based Ferrari & Maserati of Orange County is opening a Maserati dealership on Pacific Coast Highway in Newport Beach.
The dealership could open as early as January, next to Newport Autosport, which sells exotic and luxury cars such as Lamborghini, Lotus, Aston Martin and Bentley.
“We’re going down to where our clientele is,” said Amanda Stringfellow, who heads up marketing for Ferrari & Maserati of Orange County.
After holding an event at Fashion Island, Stringfellow said the dealership learned many people didn’t know where the Costa Mesa dealership was.
“They never leave that bubble,” Stringfellow said of Maserati’s target audience in Newport Beach and Corona del Mar.
The dealership in Costa Mesa plans to keep selling Ferraris and Maseratis, she said. The company won’t sell Ferraris in Newport Beach because that would be a waste of prime real estate, she said.
“Ferraris sell themselves,” she said.
Ferrari buyers will drive where they need to go to get one, according to Stringfellow. Right now, the 2005 model F430 coupe has a long waiting list, she said. The F430 replaces the Ferrari 360 Modena.
The Ferrari Enzo is the most expensive car for 2004, selling for $652,000, according to Forbes magazine. It goes up to 217 mph.
Maseratis go for $80,000 to $130,000. Like Ferraris, Maseratis are made in Italy. The Costa Mesa dealership has one of the highest allocations of Maseratis, according to Stringfellow.
The U.S. gets 1,000 Coupes and Spyders, and is expected to get another 1,000 of the $95,500 four-door Quattroporte luxury sedan.
Speaking of Luxury
Barneys New York Inc. plans to open a store at South Coast Plaza this spring, according to Dawn Brown, a spokeswoman for the tony New York retailer.
The store is set to be a “co-op” rather than a flagship, Brown said. Barneys co-op stores sell upscale casual clothes and accessories. The smaller stores also sell clothes from emerging designers, she said.
The South Coast Plaza store is set to be about 8,600 square feet and sell men’s and women’s clothes. The store is planned for the second floor in a spot that used to house a Guess? store.
Elsewhere at South Coast
Coach recently opened its expanded store at South Coast Plaza. Chanel and Fendi are revamping their stores at the shopping center for springtime openings. South Coast is set to be the first to have the Fendi’s redesigned store.
TSE Cashmere, which sells women’s clothing, is tripling the size of its South Coast store to make way for men’s and kid’s clothes.
Another newcomer to South Coast in January: Penhaligon’s, a British retailer that sells perfumes, home fragrances and gifts.
Penhaligon’s products used to be found only at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue, said Debra Gunn Downing, executive director of marketing for South Coast Plaza.
The company also has stores at the Forum Shops in Las Vegas, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and Madison Avenue in New York.
South Coast Restaurateur Troquet recently opened Atelier Troquet, a 2,500-square-foot banquet hall across from the restaurant for private events.
New York-based Sixty USA’s new director of retail plans to add Energie menswear next year to its Miss Sixty store at South Coast Plaza, according to DNR, a trade publication that follows the men’s fashion business.
How to Get Coverage
South Coast Plaza carved out a special place for the media on Black Friday,the day after Thanksgiving. Journalists doing the yearly ritual of interviewing shoppers had a place to kick their feet up, eat, break out their laptops and write stories.
About 150 California journalists passed through that day, said South Coast Plaza’s Gunn Downing. The shopping center served muffins, fruits and pastries. Several of its restaurants, including Bluewater Grill and Morton’s, provided lunch.
This is the fifth year South Coast has hosted the media after Thanksgiving. South Coast will have to find a new spot next year for its media suite,the center plans to unveil a new tenant there soon. South Coast is 98% full.
Battle of the Catalogs
Both South Coast and Fashion Island in Newport Beach are out with their annual holiday catalogs filled with color pages of gorgeous models in fancy clothes printed on high-quality paper.
South Coast’s is the bigger of the two at 138 pages long. It’s also the bigger of the two shopping centers. Fashion Island’s catalog checks in at 78 pages.
The South Coast Plaza catalog went out to 300,000 households in the area. The ads for the catalog were shot in August. New York-based Brogan Tennyson Group Inc. produced the publication.
Tenants paid big bucks to be in the catalog,the average ad price was $10,000. The catalogs were mailed out to select ZIP codes as a topper to the New York Times, the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times among others.
Fashion Island produced and distributed its catalog in much the same way as South Coast. Officials at The Irvine Company, the shopping center’s owner, declined to say how many copies were sent out or how much ads cost.
