Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

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Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by ClownLoach »

Bristol Farms is making its return to South Orange County after about a decade long absence (they had two Mission Viejo stores and closed both, one by the lake and one in the disastrous Kaleidoscope multi level center).

What is a surprise is the way this is happening. There is a large vacant Sports Authority at Irvine Spectrum, probably the last one of those to be built only to close in the liquidation about a year after it opened. This has had signage for quite some time that just said "Newfound Market coming soon" but no sign of construction commencing.

Now all of the signage has been replaced and the logo changed. The "Newfound" wordtype has been changed with the "O" becoming a symbol that represents the large hot air balloon at the nearby Irvine Great Park, and suddenly Bristol Farms has been added above it. Heavy construction is underway and looks like they could be opened by November 1st.

The Bristol Farms website describes the store as a new concept, but it sounds exactly like the new format stores they have recently opened in Yorba Linda, Woodland Hills and Santa Barbara. A Bristol Farms with a "food hall" prepared foods format, as well as a health and beauty department focused on natural supplements.

I wonder if this was going to be a true "startup" operation by a new company ("Newfound") and Bristol Farms acquired it but then decided to proceed with construction? Or if it was Bristol the entire time but then they got cold feet about launching another brand? Maybe they're going to rebrand the other new format stores as Bristol Farms Newfound Markets? Their newer format stores are a hybrid of the original gourmet focused Bristol Farms and their health/natural brand Lazy Acres - they are truly different enough from the other two nameplates to stand alone as a separate concept.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by Bagels »

Bristol Farms has been in South Orange County since at least 1998, when they opened up their full service market in Newport Beach :).

Irvine Company announced this market earlier this year, at the same time they announced the opening of two H-Marts (in the former Albertsons'). All three projects appeared to have been delayed, for whatever reason. When Newfound Market was announced, it was described largely as a food hall; now the description has been updated to include "traditional grocery items." I'm thinking Bristol Farms was always involved -- their webpage describes it as "Bristol Farm's Newfound Market" and does not mention partnering with anybody. They may have went with a different name plate, as it was not suppose to include traditional grocery items. But even then, you'd think they'd want their name included, as they have developed brand equity.

It's great to see more options, although I doubt I'll shop here much!
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by ClownLoach »

Bagels wrote: August 31st, 2021, 5:39 pm Bristol Farms has been in South Orange County since at least 1998, when they opened up their full service market in Newport Beach :).

Irvine Company announced this market earlier this year, at the same time they announced the opening of two H-Marts (in the former Albertsons'). All three projects appeared to have been delayed, for whatever reason. When Newfound Market was announced, it was described largely as a food hall; now the description has been updated to include "traditional grocery items." I'm thinking Bristol Farms was always involved -- their webpage describes it as "Bristol Farm's Newfound Market" and does not mention partnering with anybody. They may have went with a different name plate, as it was not suppose to include traditional grocery items. But even then, you'd think they'd want their name included, as they have developed brand equity.

It's great to see more options, although I doubt I'll shop here much!
I've always considered Jamboree to be the dividing line.

I just didn't see anything previously connecting it to Bristol Farms. The project seemed to be stalled for quite a while.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by ClownLoach »

This store opened today and their CEO was present and gave a speech to the waiting customers at the Grand Opening "cookie cutting."

He said this is the "newest iteration" of Bristol Farms and evolves them from just a grocery store to a full service dining experience with their new sit down restaurant at the back.

They spared no expense on this store and it is absolutely jaw dropping gorgeous.

It is basically their newest format similar to what you would see in Yorba Linda, Santa Barbara or Mulholland - with the center store shrunk down slightly. Looks like vitamins and household goods were reduced. But then the entire store wraps around the back of the meat and seafood desk and has an entire food court with five shops and a sit down neopolitain pizza place with a bar.

Looks like Bristol Farms decided to basically make their own version of Eataly. That aspect of the store reminds me of their San Francisco location that closed a few years ago. It really is a hybrid of everything they've ever done before - but only the best things that worked. They also did a good job of consolidating the service departments on the left side of the store which will ensure they can keep more of them open, versus the most recent prototype where the sandwich counter is far from the service bakery, far from the deli, and the juice bar. With all of them connected together in theory one well trained employee could cover the entire area in the slow parts of the day versus at least 4 in the other more recent prototype. I never understood why they called that prototype their "food hall" format because it wasn't one. This is - with the aforementioned pizza place, something I couldn't identify because it wasn't open yet but may be an extension of it with a make your own express pizza counter, a salad place, an Asian bowl place, a Nashville hot chicken place, and one more that I'm forgetting. Each with their own brands and unique decor like a true food hall. I suspect that some of these concepts were imported from the parent company E-Mart's higher end stores in Korea such as PK Market.

They also surprisingly have a full bank of self checkouts which makes sense with the grab and go office customer in the area. When all those office towers start filling back up they'll love this place.

Definitely takes Bristol Farms in a new direction... A little risky though with all those new restaurants within.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by Bagels »

Irvine Company just sent all of tenants an e-mail survey. The topic is very clearly 'why aren't you shopping at Bristol Farms.' I've never received a survey like that from them in the ~20 years I've leased from them....not good!
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by storewanderer »

Bagels wrote: October 25th, 2022, 5:12 pm Irvine Company just sent all of tenants an e-mail survey. The topic is very clearly 'why aren't you shopping at Bristol Farms.' I've never received a survey like that from them in the ~20 years I've leased from them....not good!
It is simple, the store has too much perimeter, it is too high priced, and lacks foot traffic.

Customers don't even know they can get their regular groceries there because the upper end/gourmet stuff overwhelms the regular stuff. Or perhaps the regular groceries are priced too high so that is the problem.

The store is very nice, however, it is trying to do too many things, for too many people. If they could use the strategy Wegmans uses and basically SKU cut center store in a very clever manner plus get center store pricing down to Wal Mart type levels (like Wegmans does), then they would get the foot traffic into the store and that foot traffic would purchase from the very attractive perimeter as well.

But these California grocers and California grocery wholesalers- they don't get it. They are so greedy when it comes to price, they think people will flock to their store to buy $6 packages of Oreos and $6 bags of Lay's Chips, and pick up some $9 12pk of Coke to wash it all down. It doesn't work like that.

Even if they just tried to price center store like Stater (along with some commodity type meat/produce like Stater) they could probably get the foot traffic necessary to make the perimeter work.

The whole problem is the inability of these small California chains to have a grocery wholesaler who is willing to support a competitively priced center store program. W OR/W WA independents have a similar challenge. I feel bad for them. If they were over in Utah, out in Eastern Washington, or anywhere in the rest of the US, they wouldn't have this problem.

We can say what we want about a perimeter heavy store but at the end of the day there is significant floor space devoted to center store and profits from center store sales which still make up 50%+ of sales in a strong store (even one with heavy perimeter) are very profitable and help subsidize all of the waste and labor that nice perimeter costs.

Maybe Bristol can go ahead and downsize the floor space and go to a perimeter only type format plus a very abbreviated center store like they had in San Francisco, but I'm not sure that would work here either.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: October 25th, 2022, 9:34 pm
Bagels wrote: October 25th, 2022, 5:12 pm Irvine Company just sent all of tenants an e-mail survey. The topic is very clearly 'why aren't you shopping at Bristol Farms.' I've never received a survey like that from them in the ~20 years I've leased from them....not good!
It is simple, the store has too much perimeter, it is too high priced, and lacks foot traffic.

Customers don't even know they can get their regular groceries there because the upper end/gourmet stuff overwhelms the regular stuff. Or perhaps the regular groceries are priced too high so that is the problem.

The store is very nice, however, it is trying to do too many things, for too many people. If they could use the strategy Wegmans uses and basically SKU cut center store in a very clever manner plus get center store pricing down to Wal Mart type levels (like Wegmans does), then they would get the foot traffic into the store and that foot traffic would purchase from the very attractive perimeter as well.

But these California grocers and California grocery wholesalers- they don't get it. They are so greedy when it comes to price, they think people will flock to their store to buy $6 packages of Oreos and $6 bags of Lay's Chips, and pick up some $9 12pk of Coke to wash it all down. It doesn't work like that.

Even if they just tried to price center store like Stater (along with some commodity type meat/produce like Stater) they could probably get the foot traffic necessary to make the perimeter work.

The whole problem is the inability of these small California chains to have a grocery wholesaler who is willing to support a competitively priced center store program. W OR/W WA independents have a similar challenge. I feel bad for them. If they were over in Utah, out in Eastern Washington, or anywhere in the rest of the US, they wouldn't have this problem.

We can say what we want about a perimeter heavy store but at the end of the day there is significant floor space devoted to center store and profits from center store sales which still make up 50%+ of sales in a strong store (even one with heavy perimeter) are very profitable and help subsidize all of the waste and labor that nice perimeter costs.

Maybe Bristol can go ahead and downsize the floor space and go to a perimeter only type format plus a very abbreviated center store like they had in San Francisco, but I'm not sure that would work here either.
Having spent a decade in Irvine it is very obvious that the Spectrum Center is completely dependent on three categories of customers, all of which are in very short supply lately for various reasons. First is the office customer who comes over with the company credit card and expenses a two hour long "business luncheon meeting.". The office towers throughout the area are still empty, and when these companies start to get to the end of their leases the situation is going to be a lot worse when they don't renew. The Spectrum Center used to be as crowded at lunchtime as on a busy Friday night with a new Marvel comics movie release, which brings me to the second problem.

Spectrum Center was the cash cow of the Edwards Theaters circuit. At one point it was one of the highest grossing movie theaters in the USA. But it was then neglected by Edwards and became run down, then Regal came in and performed a very prolonged remodel which disrupted the entire building for almost two years and cheapened up the operation, and then it was ready to reopen but COVID hit. This theater, despite the fact that there are many alternatives in the area, brought in incredible levels of foot traffic to Spectrum until now. Regal basically pushed customers into other theaters including their competition and they didn't return. The traffic this theater used to generate carried the entire shopping center 7 nights a week.

The last issue is that they had one of the strongest performing Target stores in the market, but then they decided to replace their surface parking lot with a parking structure. This left the Target store for a couple of years with less parking available than a typical grocery store. That once again disrupted customer traffic to the Spectrum as customers found other destinations to shop and many didn't return. This Target was given their "top tier" remodel in an attempt to bring back customers but clearly that didn't work either; it has never been as busy as it was prior to the parking structure construction.

Irvine Company has done an excellent job of selling tenants on the legacy of this center, signing them to top rents at Spectrum Center. But the failure rate of businesses there over the last few years, even Pre COVID, is stunning. Through bad luck (COVID) and mismanagement they have managed to reduce the traffic dramatically, I would say more than a 50% reduction, from where it was. It used to be nearly impossible to find a parking space except for the far end where Target is, now you can park in less than a minute in the main garage by Regal any day or night. When they sign a business like Bristol Farms to open up a flagship store, they give them the average demographics and traffic numbers which do not take into account the drastic fall off in traffic in most recent times. So the tenant crunches the numbers and they work for their business plan, but those demographics and traffic are not even close to accurate and as such the store doesn't meet expectations. Every retail landlord operates this way, giving really shady projections that are hard to validate or invalidate unless you have boots on the ground and really study the site with your own eyes. You would be amazed at how many retailers will build their entire business plan on road traffic numbers and sign a lease based on them - not realizing that in many cases the busiest roads are like mini highways and people do not stop to shop on said road because it is too busy!

There are other issues too such as the elimination of the free shuttle busses from the surrounding hotels and apartments; it was always nice to be able to go hop on a quick shuttle ride to go over and have a few drinks at Yard House without worrying about getting home safely. Then they got greedy and combined routes so it was like taking a city bus cross county and took half an hour to literally get to the other side of I-5. They couldn't figure out why people stopped taking the free shuttle and they halted service with COVID but never brought it back. Also the fact that they have jacked rents through the roof at their apartment communities means that their tenants don't have as much free cash available to spend at the Spectrum or anywhere else. My apartment I vacated at around $2800/month was listed at $3600 the day I turned in my notice. The expected turnaround time from vacancy was only 7 days so it wasn't going to be remodeled and believe me that it was not worth $3600 with a scenic view of the trash dumpsters. When you hear stories in the news about people turning in hundreds of applications for apartments in LA and OC but they can't get a single unit due to all the competition - that isn't happening at Irvine Company apartments at all. Their sky high rents are turning into unfilled vacancies which again take away from their shopping center traffic.

When I was still a tenant of their apartments earlier this year I also received a detailed survey that basically amounted to the same thing but a broader message of "You're basically across the street from the Spectrum, why don't you shop and dine there anymore?"

These guys have killed the Golden Goose.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by ClownLoach »

storewanderer wrote: October 25th, 2022, 9:34 pm
Bagels wrote: October 25th, 2022, 5:12 pm Irvine Company just sent all of tenants an e-mail survey. The topic is very clearly 'why aren't you shopping at Bristol Farms.' I've never received a survey like that from them in the ~20 years I've leased from them....not good!
It is simple, the store has too much perimeter, it is too high priced, and lacks foot traffic.

Customers don't even know they can get their regular groceries there because the upper end/gourmet stuff overwhelms the regular stuff. Or perhaps the regular groceries are priced too high so that is the problem.

The store is very nice, however, it is trying to do too many things, for too many people. If they could use the strategy Wegmans uses and basically SKU cut center store in a very clever manner plus get center store pricing down to Wal Mart type levels (like Wegmans does), then they would get the foot traffic into the store and that foot traffic would purchase from the very attractive perimeter as well.

But these California grocers and California grocery wholesalers- they don't get it. They are so greedy when it comes to price, they think people will flock to their store to buy $6 packages of Oreos and $6 bags of Lay's Chips, and pick up some $9 12pk of Coke to wash it all down. It doesn't work like that.

Even if they just tried to price center store like Stater (along with some commodity type meat/produce like Stater) they could probably get the foot traffic necessary to make the perimeter work.

The whole problem is the inability of these small California chains to have a grocery wholesaler who is willing to support a competitively priced center store program. W OR/W WA independents have a similar challenge. I feel bad for them. If they were over in Utah, out in Eastern Washington, or anywhere in the rest of the US, they wouldn't have this problem.

We can say what we want about a perimeter heavy store but at the end of the day there is significant floor space devoted to center store and profits from center store sales which still make up 50%+ of sales in a strong store (even one with heavy perimeter) are very profitable and help subsidize all of the waste and labor that nice perimeter costs.

Maybe Bristol can go ahead and downsize the floor space and go to a perimeter only type format plus a very abbreviated center store like they had in San Francisco, but I'm not sure that would work here either.

I would say that this particular Bristol Farms tried to go the way you're describing; they actually have an abbreviated center store assortment compared to the previous new prototype. It's closer to where they need to be and I would expect that shrink from expired product is much less because of the reduced assortment. There is minimal if any mainstream aside from maybe Coke products. In fact they really have reduced everything in the store compared to the typical Bristol. Less produce, half sized bakery and deli, reduced meat and seafood.
Smallest perimeter I've seen at Bristol except for the original and the "chalet" store up in LA. What they did with the extra space was very similar to the San Francisco concept - lots of places to order food. But they clearly were expecting a big lunch crowd from the surrounding offices to support this. Two of the restaurants in their immediate area of the center had closed in the same month they opened including the Lime Truck restaurant which just got national attention by winning the Great Food Truck Race show a second time. So an area that was losing restaurants because of diminishing traffic gained five more inside the Bristol Farms "food hall," all of which are priced at top dollar ($7-$9 coffee drinks, $13 chicken sandwich, and a fancy sit down woodfire pizza place around $25 for a personal thin crust pie).

The real issue here is that the management has screwed up the entire Spectrum Center resulting in a massive loss of the traffic that these stores need to survive. The wrong tenant mix, the wrong traffic plan, the wrong demographics (customer discretionary income becoming nonexistent due to massive rent increases). When your retail rents are priced to include both destination traffic and heavy walk in/browsing traffic sales, but the walk in/browsing customers aren't there anymore then it doesn't really matter what kind of store they're running - it won't make money.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by Bagels »

ClownLoach wrote: October 26th, 2022, 9:54 amHaving spent a decade in Irvine it is very obvious that the Spectrum Center is completely dependent on three categories of customers, all of which are in very short supply lately for various reasons. First is the office customer who comes over with the company credit card and expenses a two hour long "business luncheon meeting.". The office towers throughout the area are still empty, and when these companies start to get to the end of their leases the situation is going to be a lot worse when they don't renew. The Spectrum Center used to be as crowded at lunchtime as on a busy Friday night with a new Marvel comics movie release, which brings me to the second problem.

Spectrum Center was the cash cow of the Edwards Theaters circuit. At one point it was one of the highest grossing movie theaters in the USA. But it was then neglected by Edwards and became run down, then Regal came in and performed a very prolonged remodel which disrupted the entire building for almost two years and cheapened up the operation, and then it was ready to reopen but COVID hit. This theater, despite the fact that there are many alternatives in the area, brought in incredible levels of foot traffic to Spectrum until now. Regal basically pushed customers into other theaters including their competition and they didn't return. The traffic this theater used to generate carried the entire shopping center 7 nights a week.

The last issue is that they had one of the strongest performing Target stores in the market, but then they decided to replace their surface parking lot with a parking structure. This left the Target store for a couple of years with less parking available than a typical grocery store. That once again disrupted customer traffic to the Spectrum as customers found other destinations to shop and many didn't return. This Target was given their "top tier" remodel in an attempt to bring back customers but clearly that didn't work either; it has never been as busy as it was prior to the parking structure construction.

Irvine Company has done an excellent job of selling tenants on the legacy of this center, signing them to top rents at Spectrum Center. But the failure rate of businesses there over the last few years, even Pre COVID, is stunning. Through bad luck (COVID) and mismanagement they have managed to reduce the traffic dramatically, I would say more than a 50% reduction, from where it was. It used to be nearly impossible to find a parking space except for the far end where Target is, now you can park in less than a minute in the main garage by Regal any day or night. When they sign a business like Bristol Farms to open up a flagship store, they give them the average demographics and traffic numbers which do not take into account the drastic fall off in traffic in most recent times. So the tenant crunches the numbers and they work for their business plan, but those demographics and traffic are not even close to accurate and as such the store doesn't meet expectations. Every retail landlord operates this way, giving really shady projections that are hard to validate or invalidate unless you have boots on the ground and really study the site with your own eyes. You would be amazed at how many retailers will build their entire business plan on road traffic numbers and sign a lease based on them - not realizing that in many cases the busiest roads are like mini highways and people do not stop to shop on said road because it is too busy!

There are other issues too such as the elimination of the free shuttle busses from the surrounding hotels and apartments; it was always nice to be able to go hop on a quick shuttle ride to go over and have a few drinks at Yard House without worrying about getting home safely. Then they got greedy and combined routes so it was like taking a city bus cross county and took half an hour to literally get to the other side of I-5. They couldn't figure out why people stopped taking the free shuttle and they halted service with COVID but never brought it back. Also the fact that they have jacked rents through the roof at their apartment communities means that their tenants don't have as much free cash available to spend at the Spectrum or anywhere else. My apartment I vacated at around $2800/month was listed at $3600 the day I turned in my notice. The expected turnaround time from vacancy was only 7 days so it wasn't going to be remodeled and believe me that it was not worth $3600 with a scenic view of the trash dumpsters. When you hear stories in the news about people turning in hundreds of applications for apartments in LA and OC but they can't get a single unit due to all the competition - that isn't happening at Irvine Company apartments at all. Their sky high rents are turning into unfilled vacancies which again take away from their shopping center traffic.

When I was still a tenant of their apartments earlier this year I also received a detailed survey that basically amounted to the same thing but a broader message of "You're basically across the street from the Spectrum, why don't you shop and dine there anymore?"

These guys have killed the Golden Goose.
Great post! It’s also a a poor location for a grocery store. I get it – the concept was for it to be a food hall with a limited assortment of groceries, but driving into the Spectrum Center to grab a few items is very inconvenient. People much prefer easy in, easy out power centers for their daily needs, hence the multidecade failure of the Woodbridge Village Center.

It must be a colossal failure, as TIC is offering a $25 Bristol Farms gift card to anybody who completes they survey, which is filled with ‘Did you Know?’ nuggets (‘Did you know there are X dedicated parking stalls?’ … “Did you know that you [if you live in a neighboring community, who likely received the survey) can get in and out much faster than driving to and from Gelson’s, Albertsons and Ralph’s?”).

The changing demographics aren’t going to help, either. This is our 12th year in the same apartment. In the first nine years, our rent went up less than $400/month cumulatively. In 2020, it was hiked by $200 (but literally days after we signed it, we were offered a $150 reduction if we signed a 30-month lease that would’ve expired at year end). There was no hike for 2021, but they hiked it $300 this year. We’ll get the renewal notice at year end and we’re dreading to see what rate they’ll come up with. Our longtime neighbors left over the summer after getting a $1400/month hike. I hear that ITC has become more conservative with hikes (the new tenant mix is largely Chinese, and not boding well with local establishments) but if it’s too high, we’re going to relocate, probably near Las Vegas.
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Re: Bristol Farms "Newfound Market"

Post by ClownLoach »

Bagels wrote: October 26th, 2022, 3:25 pm
ClownLoach wrote: October 26th, 2022, 9:54 amHaving spent a decade in Irvine it is very obvious that the Spectrum Center is completely dependent on three categories of customers, all of which are in very short supply lately for various reasons. First is the office customer who comes over with the company credit card and expenses a two hour long "business luncheon meeting.". The office towers throughout the area are still empty, and when these companies start to get to the end of their leases the situation is going to be a lot worse when they don't renew. The Spectrum Center used to be as crowded at lunchtime as on a busy Friday night with a new Marvel comics movie release, which brings me to the second problem.

Spectrum Center was the cash cow of the Edwards Theaters circuit. At one point it was one of the highest grossing movie theaters in the USA. But it was then neglected by Edwards and became run down, then Regal came in and performed a very prolonged remodel which disrupted the entire building for almost two years and cheapened up the operation, and then it was ready to reopen but COVID hit. This theater, despite the fact that there are many alternatives in the area, brought in incredible levels of foot traffic to Spectrum until now. Regal basically pushed customers into other theaters including their competition and they didn't return. The traffic this theater used to generate carried the entire shopping center 7 nights a week.

The last issue is that they had one of the strongest performing Target stores in the market, but then they decided to replace their surface parking lot with a parking structure. This left the Target store for a couple of years with less parking available than a typical grocery store. That once again disrupted customer traffic to the Spectrum as customers found other destinations to shop and many didn't return. This Target was given their "top tier" remodel in an attempt to bring back customers but clearly that didn't work either; it has never been as busy as it was prior to the parking structure construction.

Irvine Company has done an excellent job of selling tenants on the legacy of this center, signing them to top rents at Spectrum Center. But the failure rate of businesses there over the last few years, even Pre COVID, is stunning. Through bad luck (COVID) and mismanagement they have managed to reduce the traffic dramatically, I would say more than a 50% reduction, from where it was. It used to be nearly impossible to find a parking space except for the far end where Target is, now you can park in less than a minute in the main garage by Regal any day or night. When they sign a business like Bristol Farms to open up a flagship store, they give them the average demographics and traffic numbers which do not take into account the drastic fall off in traffic in most recent times. So the tenant crunches the numbers and they work for their business plan, but those demographics and traffic are not even close to accurate and as such the store doesn't meet expectations. Every retail landlord operates this way, giving really shady projections that are hard to validate or invalidate unless you have boots on the ground and really study the site with your own eyes. You would be amazed at how many retailers will build their entire business plan on road traffic numbers and sign a lease based on them - not realizing that in many cases the busiest roads are like mini highways and people do not stop to shop on said road because it is too busy!

There are other issues too such as the elimination of the free shuttle busses from the surrounding hotels and apartments; it was always nice to be able to go hop on a quick shuttle ride to go over and have a few drinks at Yard House without worrying about getting home safely. Then they got greedy and combined routes so it was like taking a city bus cross county and took half an hour to literally get to the other side of I-5. They couldn't figure out why people stopped taking the free shuttle and they halted service with COVID but never brought it back. Also the fact that they have jacked rents through the roof at their apartment communities means that their tenants don't have as much free cash available to spend at the Spectrum or anywhere else. My apartment I vacated at around $2800/month was listed at $3600 the day I turned in my notice. The expected turnaround time from vacancy was only 7 days so it wasn't going to be remodeled and believe me that it was not worth $3600 with a scenic view of the trash dumpsters. When you hear stories in the news about people turning in hundreds of applications for apartments in LA and OC but they can't get a single unit due to all the competition - that isn't happening at Irvine Company apartments at all. Their sky high rents are turning into unfilled vacancies which again take away from their shopping center traffic.

When I was still a tenant of their apartments earlier this year I also received a detailed survey that basically amounted to the same thing but a broader message of "You're basically across the street from the Spectrum, why don't you shop and dine there anymore?"

These guys have killed the Golden Goose.
It must be a colossal failure, as TIC is offering a $25 Bristol Farms gift card to anybody who completes they survey, which is filled with ‘Did you Know?’ nuggets (‘Did you know there are X dedicated parking stalls?’ … “Did you know that you [if you live in a neighboring community, who likely received the survey) can get in and out much faster than driving to and from Gelson’s, Albertsons and Ralph’s?”).
How in the world is it easier to get in and out versus going to the other names grocery stores? Maybe if you have a cushy office in Spectrum Center itself? They are completely out of touch.
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