Shopkeepers worried rising rents will force them out of Brentwood Country Mart
A plan to rejuvenate the Brentwood Country Mart threatens to force out small merchants who have been doing business at the shopping mall for years.
The merchants, who range from a thrift shop for cancer survivors to a toy store and a cookie shop, face higher rents because of Santa Monica developer James Rosenfield’s future plans. Rosenfield, who recently bought the 1948 colonial-style mall, plans to spend millions of dollars renovating the once-thriving mall.
“Everybody is so scared of this guy, they don’t know what he’s doing,” said Adrienne Fayne, a volunteer at the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop, a non-profit thrift store that’s been at the mart for the past eight years. “He’s got everybody on a month-to-month lease. Everybody is kind of precarious at this point, because they don’t want to piss this guy off.”
Rosenfield in January bought the 30,000-square-foot mall on the southeast corner of 26th Street and San Vicente Boulevard from John E. Anderson, the namesake of UCLA’s Anderson Business School. Despite that Rosenfield has said his goal is to restore the mall, rents are likely to double or triple once the existing leases expire, shopkeepers say.
That appears to have spelled the end for the mall’s gift shop, whose owner on Monday said her good-byes to the other merchants and closed her doors for good. And it may also mean the end for stores like Country Mart Toys, which has been at the mall since it first opened 55 years ago.
Toy store owner Nelly Lavarreda said she’s hoping her lease, which is set at $4.99 per square foot with all the fees included, won’t be increased too much when it expires next August.
Rosenfield, who recently reopened the old post office at the mall, said his main goal is to bring the Brentwood Country Mart back to its original state. He said there will be some turnover because of rent increases and for other reasons, but overall the type of merchants at the mall will remain the same.
“People were very concerned that the Country Mart was going to be torn down and altered,” he said. “None of that happened. We’re just improving the place.
“Tenants have been doing poorly at the Country Mart, unfortunately, for many years. Some tenants have been in such bad shape that they either don’t feel any benefit (from recent improvements and events to attract shoppers) or it’s too little too late.
“Rents do need to go up somewhat because the property was struggling so much that rents had fallen,” he added. “And now, as we improve, as sales improve, as visits improve, rents will naturally increase.”
“Rents do need to go up somewhat because the property was struggling so much that rents had fallen.” — — JAMES ROSENFIELD Owner, Brentwood Country Mart
While shopkeepers hold their breath and wait for Rosenfield to set the new rates, stores like Mrs. Beasley’s, a cookie and cake vendor, have already found new locations. Mrs. Beasley’s, which is moving to a location across 26th Street, faced a 200 percent increase in monthly rent, despite that Anderson is a co-owner of the business and still owns the land where the mall sits. Anderson only sold the buildings to Rosenfield, not the property.
379,“We created the monster, but we’re leaving,” said Anthony Crisafulli, a general manager for the chain cookie shop. “He’s not saying, ‘Leave.’ We can stay. But we can barely do it now.”
Unlike Mrs. Beasley’s, not all the vendors can afford to move. And leaving the immediate area would be a real setback to stores like the Discovery Shop, workers said.
“Everyone who works in the store is a volunteer, lives in the neighborhood,” Fayne said. “We shop here, we donate. We’re really here not just to sell but to talk to cancer survivors and people going through chemotherapy now.”
The Discovery Shop sells high-end, second-hand items that are donated to benefit the American Cancer Society. Larry Meisner, vice president of Discovery Shops throughout California, said Rosenfield has talked about raising the rent from $3.10 to $8 per square foot when their lease expires in January of 2005.
3E4,“What he said to me is, based upon his vision for the new shopping center, is the rent per square foot will most likely be prohibitive for our type of store,” Meisner said. “He was preparing us for seemingly the inevitable.”
Meisner said he is hoping Rosenfield will reconsider the rent hike and work with the shop to set a more affordable rent level.
Terry Masi, the manager and only paid employee at the Discovery Shop, said Rosenfield apparently wants to make the Brentwood Country Mart more upscale and geared towards the affluent neighborhoods in northern Santa Monica and Brentwood.
“The whole press that he’s getting about how he wants to bring it back to the way it was, there really is another side to it,” Masi said. “It’s not going to be the way it was.”
Volunteer Olive Rose agrees.
“He’s not doing what he said he was,” Rose said. “People know us and we’ve been here all this time. He had said he was going to make it like it used to be. But instead of coming, everyone is going.”
Dedicated patrons of the Discovery Shop, where brand names such as DKNY and Polo Ralph Lauren are sold at thrift-store prices, said they’ve come to rely on the presence of the small retailer.
“It’s too bad,” said Arlene Fisherman, of Brentwood, as she perused the store. “They should give them some kind of a break.”
Rosenfield, whose mother died from breast cancer, said he doesn’t have anything personal against the Discovery Shop but that rents have to increase. He pointed out the space used to be a hardware store that he said was as much of a benefit to the community, if not more than the thrift shop.
New leases already have been signed for some longtime merchants at the Country Mart like the pharmacy, the barber and the shoe repair shop, Rosenfield added. Meanwhile, there are at least six empty shops and more may become vacant soon if shopkeepers decide they cannot afford the rent.
Asked if shoppers at the Brentwood Country Mart could expect designer stores like Gucci and Prada, Rosenfield responded, “Absolutely not. I think that what you’ll see is tenants in keeping with the nature of what’s been there in the past. The Country Mart is a different place, it’s not Montana Avenue and in my mind it never should be.”
Terry Masi
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 27, 2003. Read the original PDF.