Store Closing Sale! Sample sale! SALE! SALE! SALE!

More store closings on Menswear Row due to, you know, teh misery.

Academy Award Clothes is closing their store location carrying Name Brand Clothing Suits, Sport Coats, Slacks, Dress Shirts and Ties Tallia, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein etc… Vintage Clothing Tuxedos, Dinner Jackets and Tail.

Aww, cheer this guy up and buy something!

I expect their stock and custom apparel business to continue, so you still have time to score that sweet pure-white "Tournament of Roses" suit for only $184.75.

Down the street, Pellucci is so poor they can't even maintain the "P" above their door. But where else are you going to find this much suit for $69.99? Act now! Don't miss out!



Meanwhile, spotted on Ninth St, "Bees and Dragons / Monster Republic Kids Sample Sale!" Of course I missed the first day, but it happens again this Friday, 11/21. Our kids can be the fashion plates they deserve to be! -- 834 S. Broadway suite #703, 1/2 block north of 9th st. on B'way (next to Orpheum Theater) Friday (11/21) 11AM-5PM. Boy's sizes: 6M - 10 Infant/Baby: 1M - 24M

More thoughts on downtown development

I saw a post on Curbed LA that mentioned LA Live. Since I had only a very vague idea of what LA Live is, I did a little googling and quickly found out that LA Live is basically Marina del Rey combined with Universal City Walk, located right next to the Staples Center.

Wow. Talk about missing the point of being downtown.

I know that South Park is supposed to be the most successful neighborhood in Downtown--but by what criteria? Do we really want to recreate Marina del Rey Downtown? I mean, if you want a Marina del Rey living experience, wouldn't you rather just live in Marina del Rey and be able to walk to the beach?

If you're going to develop Downtown, you should exploit what's good about being in a dense city: walkability, readily available mass transit, older buildings with details you don't find in newer construction. That's the hook. Not, "Ooh, it's just like Third Street Promenade! And almost as expensive! Only it's not next to the beach and the freeways form a cluster fuck around it!"

The Bank District/Gallery Row/Historic Core (pick the name you like best) makes a lot more sense. You're restoring the beautiful Beaux Arts and Art Deco buildings that are already there. There are more and more restaurants, bars and galleries springing up. It's a quick trip to the freeway but you're not living right next to it. You have easy access to most of the major bus and rail lines in the city. And you have a lot of economic and ethnic diversity, which is not the case in most of LA.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in South Park as the condo crash continues. I think the more central areas of Downtown may wind up doing better in the long run. The artists and creative types who are drawn to the Historic Core may be more likely to stick around simply because their expectations are more reasonable. And the changes to the neighborhood are driven by residents, rather than by developers.

Downtown developer up shit's creek (which is good news for folks like me)

From Bloomberg via Curbed LA:

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- A package of Los Angeles real estate on sale for 35 cents on the dollar is attracting investors to the depressed shares of Meruelo Maddux Properties Inc., the biggest private landowner in the city's four-square-mile downtown.

The stock has plummeted 85 percent since an initial public offering 15 months ago as the global credit crisis threatens to disrupt refinancing of $200 million in mortgage debt coming due in the next 12 months, as well as completion of the city's tallest downtown residential tower.

Meruelo Maddux owns or controls 80 acres including the Little Tokyo Shopping Center, home of the country's largest Japanese supermarket, as well as warehouses and buildings used in Tom Cruise's action film ``Mission Impossible III.''

...

Meruelo Maddux's market capitalization of $142 million is about a third of the book value of its properties minus debts. Loan payments and maintenance consume $500,000 a month more than the company takes in, eroding the developer's $13.5 million in cash.

...

Meruelo Maddux's biggest bet is that people will want to live downtown, where 500,000 work but only 35,000 dwell....Meruelo Maddux is building a 34-story rental tower, known as 717 Ninth, that will be Los Angeles's tallest downtown residential structure. Twenty floors have been erected so far. The building is across the street from a 50,000-square-foot Ralphs Grocery Co. outlet, the first supermarket-chain store to open downtown in more than 50 years.

Bank Balks

While a ``large bank'' pulled out of a $97 million construction loan for the tower in January, the project will be completed on time next year, Meruelo told analysts on a March 31 conference call, without identifying the lender. The company is negotiating a new loan, he said.

People do want to live downtown. What they don't want to do is pay $700K to do it. Wonder what the sales prices will be when the tower is finished next year?