NBBJ Real Estate Awards

I see it's time to send in nominations for the Business Journal's "fifth annual 2010 Top Projects Awards" (fifth... 2010...?).

There aren't a lot of Marin contenders (it's been a quiet year). A leading contender in the mixed use category will be the Tamalpais Commons project in Mill Valley (picture below). This higher-density development is the first of several planned for Miller Avenue and is still controversial with many locals who fear increased levels of traffic. I'm not sure whether the residential component is a success, but the retail is a great addition to this part of Miller, adding three new businesses: Dish restaurant, Yolo fro-yo and ToyHouse.

Another Marin mixed-use development that might receive an award is the Millworks project, which houses the new Whole Foods in downtown Novato. The City has been criticized for allowing such a large project. And in terms of design it's just OK. On balance I think it's a worthwhile project, bringing business, jobs and residents to the downtown area.

Northgate Mall probably doesn't qualify, as it opened last year. They did a great job of getting most of the space leased in the midst of the great recession, but I'm not a fan of the design: the inside of the place looks too much like a warehouse. And there are too many small design fails, such as putting the H&M entry right behind this structural column.

Meanwhile, over the street at Northgate One, the new Walgreen is my official entry for "Ugly Building Turning Its Back On The Street" category.

Buy your tickets for the gala awards ceremony now, folks.

Northgate Mall - Victoria's Secret coming soon

Since the renovated Northgate Mall opened at the end of 2009, they've been steadily adding new retailers. I got my first look at the new Forever 21 store at Northgate Mall last weekend.

There's no missing the remodeled mall's identity - it's all about mid market fashion. There's the three department stores for the older generations, and for teens and young adults there's a host of specialty chain stores. In fact, I've never seen such a concentration of almost identical stores next to each other. I'm sure the kids will tell me that Tilly's is nothing like PacSun is nothing like Hot Topic, Forever 21, Buckle, H&M etc... but for me it's all a little repetitive.

Victoria's Secret, which will occupy a large unit at the center of the mall, will certainly add a little complementary variety to the mix

Kohl's arrives in Marin

It's not every week we see a new department store in Marin, so the arrival of Kohl's at Northgate has to count as a major retail event. The owners of Northgate had some good fortune when Mervyns went into bankruptcy last year and closed all their stores. What could have been a problem turned out to be a bonus when Kohl's snapped up the Northgate anchor store, along with many others across California. And the timing was perfect, with Northgate embarking on a major renovation that is heading for completion at the end of this year.

Externally, the main change, aside from the new name and a lick of paint, is that the Kohl's box is now separated from the rest of the center. The internal mall that used to connect to the old Mervyn's has gone, replaced by what will eventually be an outdoor "Oak Plaza", with roadside restaurants and stores. You can see the tree in the photos below, plus the new units attached to Kohl's, which will include Panera Bread and Roadside BBQ.

Inside, the transformation is more dramatic. There are no structural changes to the Mervyn's box, and the floor plan is a simple racetrack layout, with a pair of escalators in the center to move between the two levels. But the internal furnishings and displays are all new and the presentation of the merchandise is very well done. It looks, feels and smells like a new store.

The store is not very large, so apparel takes up the majority of the space. The lower level is mostly clothing, with a jewelry/accessory section. A lot of the upper level is taken by kids clothing, together with shoes and a home/bath section.

Most department stores place checkouts throughout the store, but here the checkouts are all located together close to the main entrance, which is more like a Target or other discount store.

The customer service desk is on the upper level (pictured below).

Kohl's branding strategy includes the usual mix of own-brands, industry favorites and exclusive designers. A lot of the merchandise carries one of Kohl's own store brands; I saw names like Sonoma Life and Croft & Barrow. Nike, Fila, Levis and Lee jeans are heavily promoted. The exclusive brands include Dana Buchman and Simply Vera Wang. I also noted Tony Hawk skatewear, Elle clothing, Chaps and Lauren Conrad.

Overall, first impressions of Kohl's were very positive. The staff are clearly motivated, and there are plenty of them. The merchandise looks good and the prices look competitive. The whole experience is completely different to the sad state that Mervyn's had reached towards the end. It is also clearly superior to the Sears and Macy's stores at Northgate, and hopefully it will spur those stores, particularly Sears, to make improvements.

Friday news update

Walgreens is poised to take over the space vacated by Pier 1 Imports at Northgate One in Terra Linda. The move is likely to be less controversial than the proposed new Walgreens in Novato, which will be built on the Mission Lodge Hotel site at Diablo Avenue and Redwood Blvd.

A big disappointment to the well-dressed man around Mill Valley is the closure of Wilkes Bashford.

Social media is finally catching on with Marin's shopping malls. The Town Center at Corte Madera now has a Twitter page, as does The Village. Also on Twitter are Andy's Market and Northgate, which also has a Facebook page.

But the big news event of the week was the arrival of Kohl's department store, which opened at Northgate this Wednesday. A full report will be coming soon.

Weekly news roundup

In San Rafael there is a public hearing tonight (9-21) at 8.00pm where the City Council will be discussing the proposed Mi Pueblo grocery store at 330 Bellam Blvd.

If you want to have your say on the revised plans for the relocation of Corbett's ACE Hardware store to 800 Magnolia in Larkspur, there's a Planning Commission hearing September 22nd.

In Novato, All Star party rentals has relocated from Grant Avenue to Olive Avenue. Meanwhile, eleven stores on Grant Avenue have signed up for Novato Redevelopment Agency's Grant Avenue Facade Development Program. The program provides up to half the cost of improvements to the building's exterior.

The renovation of Northgate continues on schedule, with the grand opening of Kohl's planned for Sept 30th. In case you missed it, the latest announcement of new stores to take space in the mall includes a 2-level, 28,000 sq.ft Forever 21, and new-to-Marin fashion stores Hot Topic (think Twilight T-shirts) and North Bay shoe retailer Sole Desire.

H&M moving forward with Northgate store

According to the IJ, fashion retailer H&M is moving forward with plans to open a store at the renovated Northgate Mall in San Rafael, and has submitted tenant improvement plans to the City for approval.

H&M has been getting a lot of good press recently with its limited edition ranges from major fashion designers. The Mathew Williamson collection nearly caused riots in some stores last month. However, most stock competes in the Gap / Zara / American Apparel price range.

The addition of H&M is in line with the teen-market positioning of the fashion component of the revamped mall, but is not news. The leasing plan released last year by Macerich identified H&M as the proposed tenant of unit 129 (view the current leasing plan on the mall website, but with store names now removed) in one of the largest specialty store spaces, at 14,200 square feet, with a 12,800 sf mezzanine level.

Other stores to look out for, according to my copy of the original leasing plan, are A&F's Hollister in unit 014; Forever 21, proposed for unit 139; American Eagle Outfitters in unit 078; Aeropostale in 074; Charlotte Russe in 145; and Wet Seal in 151.

On another note, it looks like Northgate is the first shopping center in Marin to start Twittering! You can follow them here.

Northgate Mall's makeover taking shape

At last the scaffolding has come down around the first phase of Northgate Mall's renovation. And the Macerich team have kindly posted some new photos of the work in progress on the mall's website.

The retro/industrial warehouse look is evident in the photo below, which shows the renovated eastern mall and the existing Gap store. (Click on the picture for larger version).
The US Bank has some nice brick detailing. Shame about the ugly black windows.

I'm liking the new entry adjacent to the Century Theatres.

Here's the food court, complete with chairs and tables, but no sign of any eateries.

Another view of the eastern mall, next to the Macy's entrance I think.

Follow the link above to the website for more pictures. And here are some of the previous pictures.

Celebrating Marin's green retail credentials on Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, which coincides with the grand opening celebration of the State's greenest grocery store, located not in Marin, but nearby Petaluma. Raley's new market has achieved a gold level Green Chill rating from the EPA, and has has advanced design features that allow it to use less refrigerant, electricity and water than typical supermarkets.

In Marin County, there are a couple of green retail projects worth mentioning. First prize goes to Hamilton Marketplace, which has several green innovations, including 2,000 square feet of solar panels, providing power for the common areas and parking lots, and estimated to save 31 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

Northgate Mall's redevelopment is also designed with the environment in mind: "It's a whole new Northgate - the environmentally-friendly redesign will feel fresh, modern, and right for Marin County's discerning shopper." Northgate owner Macerich, which also owns The Village at Corte Madera, is targeting LEED certification for the project, and provides highlights of other sustainability initiatives on its corporate website.

Home Depot is giving away one free energy-efficient light CFL light bulb and a faucet aerator to each customer. Just don't drive to the store, otherwise it'll be somewhat counterproductive.

A special mention for Stefano's Pizzeria, which is still the only place to get a solar-powered pizza in the County.

And finally Proof Lab in Mill Valley, where you can buy skateboard wheels made from recycled ecothanes. As the blurb says, it's a "breakthrough in skateboarding sustainability".

Northgate Mall refurb: new photos, new renderings and new timing

Yuk - it looks like Home Depot! was my first reaction to the photos of the nearly-completed first stage of the Northgate Mall renovation.

The Northgate Mall construction website has been updated with some new photos of the work in progress and artistic renderings of the finished product. Also, a revised timeline for completion of the first phase, which was previously supposed to be finished at the end of last month, but is now scheduled for the end of March. The grand opening for the completed renovation is now scheduled for November, in time for the holiday shopping rush (if there is one this year).

Bare steel beams and exposed roofing and ducting give the new interior space a very industrial look, which is not very attractive in its current state.
However, things look better on the artistic renderings, such as the one below of the food court, with plenty of wood to soften the look and of course lots of attractive happy smiling shoppers too.
The photo below shows how the exterior of the food court is shaping up. More steel beams, which, if you look at the artist rendering, will be covered by some fuzzy brown stuff...

Weekend news digest

At the end of another week of depressing stories of store closures, bankruptcies and sales declines, it's time to tune in to the serious news stories in Marin-land.

First off, the Marin IJ took an excursion to northern San Rafael this week and came back with two stories about Northgate. The first article was about the renovations to Northgate Mall, where the big news is that the mall is.... still being renovated. There are a couple of photos of the (still empty) new food court, but not much to get excited about.

Second article reports on approval of the redesign of Northgate One, home of the World's nastiest Safeway. No word on whether Safeway will remodel their store, but they at least show some nice before and after shots of the center's refurb:

Meanwhile, the Twin Cities Times gets enthusiastic (and who wouldn't be) about the replacement of the Town Center Corte Madera's Maccas with The Counter. From the website:

Step into The Counter® and you’re greeted with a clipboard and an extensive list of fresh mouth-watering ingredients that allow you to build your own gourmet burger. Our 312,120+ different burger combinations make every burger as unique as each customer. Rarely is the same burger made twice in one day.

Anti-Established in 2003, The Counter® is the 21st century’s bold answer to the classic burger joint. Ushering in a fresh era of industrial decor, today’s music, cold beer, unique wines, cocktails, and burger options that are only limited by your imagination.

Read the build-a-burger menu and try not to drool.

Top Retail Cities in Marin

Continuing our look at the retail sales tax data for Marin County from the California Board of Equalization (great name by the way). The table below shows total sales at retail outlets by city for the years 2006-07. So what is it telling us?

• San Rafael captures the largest slice of retail sales, with $1.3 billion or 38% of sales in Marin in 2007. San Rafael extends over quite a large area, which includes the downtown area, Northgate Mall, the big box retail along 101, Montecito Plaza and Home Depot.
• Novato is the second largest city, with 18% of the total, or $595 million. Most of this is drawn through Vintage Oaks.
• Corte Madera, with sales of $450 million, or 14% of the total, takes third place.
• The city with the greatest increase in sales was San Anselmo, with growth of $9.9 million, or 14% between 2006 and 2007. I don't recall any major retail changes taking place, so I wonder if the change reflects the impact of the floods on New Years Day 2006, which took out many downtown businesses for several weeks.
• Mill Valley also had a good 2007, up $6.9 million or 3.7% in 2007, possibly as a result of new store openings at Strawberry Village.
• Corte Madera recorded the greatest fall in sales over the period, down $4.2 million or 0.9% in 2007. This may reflect refurbishment work at the Town Center (Barnes & Noble) and The Village, which went through a program of renovations in 2007.

The BoE data also provides details of sales by retailer category. Unfortunately, the Board is in the process of changing how it classifies businesses, so we can't do a meaningfull comparison with previous years. I'll publish some charts with this data later this week.

Northgate renovation underway

Anyone who has been to Northgate will have noticed a lot of the main mall is now boarded-off as the renovation work gets going. For those of you who haven't yet shared the vision, here's what to expect:

This re­imagined shopping destination will offer simple yet dramatic, light­filled spaces, an indoor-outdoor design to take advantage of the region's spectacular days, and a new connection with this one­of­a­kind local landscape. The result will feel like creative reuse of a reclaimed warehouse or a rediscovered industrial building ­­ think "Marin loft" ­ but rethought as a vibrant new shopping environment.

One new problem (or opportunity) for the developer to deal with is the uncertain future of Mervyn's, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month. If Mervyn's were to go, who would we want to replace them?

Shop of the Day

In the movie The Forty Year Old Virgin, one of the main characters works in a store that sells stuff on eBay. When a guy goes into the store and wants to buy something he is told he can only have it if he goes home and buys it on the internet.

Well, folks, here is that store. And no, it's not a joke. It's in the Mall at Northgate, it's called Sold Online, and, as the hi-tech display in the picture shows, it works like this: you drop off your item, they sell it online, and you get a check in the (snail?) mail.

Unfortunately I didn't have any items with me to drop off (why didn't I think to bring that old Ikea table with me to the mall?), so I couldn't try out the service.

Any ideas why there's a dentist's chair in the store?

The Mall at Northgate

It's the biggest mall in Marin and the only enclosed shopping center in the county. Located in Terra Linda, just three miles north of San Rafael, it's got three department stores and around 100 specialty shops. It's forty years old and ugly as hell. Yes, it's the Mall at Northgate. Very brief history: started out as Emporium department store (now Macy's) and an outdoor mall. People tell me this was a nice place to shop in the 1970s, but I guess it was also the only place to shop back then. Major renovation in the late 1980s resulted in the present format. A glass roof was added to enclose the mall, requiring a multitude of columns to support it, which you see everywhere.
After several years of speculation, Macerich finally revealed plans at the end of last year for a full renovation, to begin sometime in 2008. Going against the current fashion for de-malling, they've decided to keep the roof on, but make significant changes to bring the center up to date, including new high-level windows along the malls and the creation of outdoor plaza areas. More details here.
The layout is a T-shape, with a department store anchoring the end of each mall. There's level parking on each side, with several points of entry to the mall in addition to direct entry to the department stores. There's also a double-deck parking garage in the south-west corner.

I took my camera along on my visit this weekend to record the "before" version. On the outside, Northgate looks like many a regional mall from this era, surrounded by a sea of car parking with a lot of not very attractive walls. There are several areas with external-facing stores, but as usual, these are low-traffic locations and attract low-rent tenants.

Inside the center the natural light is quite good but the malls are rather wide and have been filled with an abundance of kiosks, carts, vending machines, palm trees, plantings and other clutter. Part of the renovation plan is to bring forward the store fronts to narrow the malls, providing a more intimate retail environment without the need for messy mall furniture. The renovation also needs to do something about the poorly-designed side malls and long bare walls that exist at the moment. The lack of activity in these areas brings down the vibe of the whole center.

The three department stores cover the low to middle market segments, with Mervyn's anchoring the discount end, closely followed by Sears, with Macy's having slightly higher price points. The Macy's store is possibly in the worst condition, with worn carpeting and beaten-up fixtures. Mervyn's tile and carpet flooring is also clearly ancient, and Sears is not much better. Let's hope a good overhaul of these stores is part of the renovation package. The specialty shop roster is a long way from what you would expect from a major mall in Marin. Admittedly, the center management isn't actively trying to lease the units ahead of the renovation, so there is no point being too harsh on the current composition. But after the reno is complete the roster should be a who's-who of mid-market fashion chain stores. Here's your demographic:

The most popular part of the center on my visit was the food court, which was doing a great business with fans of the fast-food.