Downtown Santa Monica is getting into the holiday spirit in true Hollywood fashion.
An award-winning set designer who has done the art direction on two of Steven Spielberg films was hired to design the Third Street Promenade’s lighting display and “Winterlit” theme centered around the main sections of the outdoor mall.
Ramsey Avery and his crews just finished adorning the Promenade with 21,000 lights, 22-foot tall illuminated trees, icebergs jutting up from the ground around the mall’s dinosaur courtyards and ice shards dangling from light poles.
Officials from the Bayside District Corp., which manages downtown Santa Monica with the city, as well as downtown merchants, hope the new theme will attract shoppers here. The new set design for the Promenade cost the Bayside District Corp. about $400,000.
“We are hoping the lifespan for all of it is between three and five years,” said Kathleen Rawson, executive director of Bayside District Corp. “We believed we
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 20, 2002. Read the original PDF.