Malibu Lumber Yard Center Gets Ready to Greet the Community

• High-End Commercial Complex Is Critical Lynchpin of City’s Financial Future

BY SONJA MAGDEVSKI

The Malibu Lumber Yard will officially open its doors Saturday, April 18, with a ceremonial ribbon cutting to kick off a weekend of events open to the public. The center’s developers, longtime Malibu residents Richard Weintraub and Richard Sperber, along with city officials and invited friends and family, will jumpstart the morning’s festivities at 9:30.
Afterwards, everyone is welcome to tour the site and join in a plethora of family-friendly activities that include face-painting, balloon sculptures, magic shows, jewelry-making, and popcorn and cotton candy stations, held on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Located on 2.7 acres at the intersection of Cross Creek Road and the Pacific Coast Highway, the two-story open air complex is comprised of 30,000 square feet of retail space designed to accommodate what are seen as Malibu’s changing demographics, while maintaining the unique small-town qualities inherent in this seaside community of 13,000 people, which attracts more than 15 million tourists each year.
Environmental sensitivity was the watchword during the center’s planning and construction. Built with eco-conscious materials, the buildings’ features include a certified sustainable-harvested epay hardwood deck, low-flow faucets and toilets, water-wise landscaping and decomposed granite driveways.
An eco-friendly mindset coupled with the center’s sleek design highlighting the organic elements of the natural environment surrounding the area were described as vital goals of the developers, city officials, and the center’s new tenants, particularly as the Malibu Lumber Yard will be the gateway to Legacy Park, which the city plans to transform into a 15-acre community park that will double as a catch basin to capture and clean storm-water runoff, preventing it from adding to the pollution of Malibu Lagoon.
With mountain and ocean views seen from practically every corner of the center, overall, the Malibu Lumber Yard’s construction costs hover around $25 million. “Richard and I are proud of the fact that we are adding something that will be a great addition to the community that will also generate income for the city to do some great things,” Weintraub said.
The center opens to a large outdoor deck featuring a children’s play area flanked by three enormous nine-foot and 11-foot-tall fish tanks that will hold local and tropical fish and feature California’s state fish, the brilliant orange Garibaldi. “Living room” areas have been designed alongside the children’s space for families and adults to meet and enjoy the select mix of retail offerings day and night, as well as the numerous events the Malibu Lumber Yard has planned throughout the year. The center also includes an area for private parties of all sizes, with full-service event capabilities.
“I am hopeful that the Malibu Lumber Yard will be a beautiful community gathering place where you will run into friends and family, see kids playing and local teens gathering on the weekends,” said Malibu Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich who was closely involved in selecting Weintraub and Sperber as the developers. “It was important to me to have somebody who would be directly vested with the outcome and success of the lumber site to make it a place the community would visit and embrace.”
For this weekend’s opening, only a fraction of the tenants will actually be ready for business, such a Crumbs Bakeshop, James Perse and Theory. In the coming days and weeks ahead, the majority of tenants will gradually move in, including Milk, Dance Star, J. Crew-at-the-Beach, Rande Gerber’s Café Habana, Andriana Shamaris, Intermix, Tory Burch, Alice+ Olivia, Maxfield, and Planet Blue Kids, in addition to another restaurant and other retailers.
After speaking with a number of retailers, the prevailing factor that attracted both local and national tenants was their desire to fill a perceived void in Malibu’s retail arena, as Crumbs President and CEO Jason Bauer explained with regard to his business. “While plenty of cupcake shops have sprung up within the last few years, there was no bakery in the area servicing the Malibu community,” he said. Bauer started Crumbs in New York City in 2003 with his wife Mia, a former attorney turned baker. To date, they have opened 19 retail bakeshops that feature 150 different products baked fresh daily, including their signature cupcakes and custom-made cakes. Malibu will be their fifth Los Angeles area location and the couple signed the lease before the developers even broke ground. “Malibu has a great demographic for our product,” Bauer said. “We like to go where there is a concentration of families, lots of kids, and good incomes.”
According to city statistics from the Malibu Chamber of Commerce, the average household income is $159,922, well above the averages of Beverly Hills, Thousand Oaks, and Los Angeles. Malibu Lumber Yard real estate agent Jay Luchs of CB Ellis said the average sales per square foot for high-end retailers in Malibu in the years 2005, 2006 and 2007 were much higher than anywhere else in Los Angeles, even though the population is much smaller.
“Tenants were averaging $3000 to $4000 per square foot, when $1000 per square foot is considered strong,” Luchs said. As a result, retail competition for space in the Malibu Lumber Yard was fierce, and although many perspective tenants were offering rental rates well above the developers’ asking price to secure a lease, Luchs said they turned away a number of offers because the retail fit was not right for Malibu. “Our goal was to strike a balance of unique tenants,” he said. “It wasn’t about how high the number could be, it was more about the mix.”
This chic mystique of sophisticated, moneyed residents embedded in Malibu’s small-town casual beach charm has led many of the MLY tenants to accommodate the community’s special shopping circumstances by appealing directly to these local tastes. Many of the center’s retailers are emphasizing unique products and superior, personalized customer service, and when necessary, eschewing their larger corporate images.
National clothing retailer J. Crew, for instance, with almost 40 stores in California alone, is opening J. Crew at-the-Beach, a store specifically tailored to this clientele by offering upscale hand-selected women’s fashions in a boutique-like atmosphere. “The ocean is an important part of J. Crew’s visuals and vernacular, and Malibu conjures up images of surfers, people in bikinis and an eternal summer, which is a great fit for our clothes,” said J. Crew Creative Director Jenna Lyons. “For our Malibu store we want to feel like a smaller brand with personal shoppers who know customers by name.” J. Crew-at-the-Beach will also feature Crewcuts, the company’s two-year -old childrens line that helped dress President Barak Obama’s daughters Sasha and Malia for the inauguration in January. The girls’ colorful coats will be a part of this fall’s clothing line, and available for pre-order.
In addition to the events this weekend, an opening party press event will be held on Tuesday, April 21, from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. where the Malibu Lumber Yard guests will join with the Malibu Boys and Girls Club and the J.K. Livin Foundation created by Matthew McConaughey to celebrate with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and dancing to music by DJ Reach and Ravi Drums.