Irvine Company Shopping Centers

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This weekend while I was driving around Irvine (I was heading for Yogurtland next to Taiko), I noticed that most shopping centers are managed by the Irvine Company and the few that are not seem to be much more busy. At first I wondered why, but then I noticed that the non-Irvine Company centers seemed to have a lot more Asian and Persian businesses. I find it interesting that the majority of Irvine seems to be non-white, yet the Irvine Company seems only to rent chain stores with very few ethnic restaurants. Is this because of the rents they charge or are they purposely trying to hold on to the Orange County image?





What shopping centers in Irvine are not managed by the Irvine Company and is there a greater diversity in these centers?
 
I tried to lease a spot in the Northpark area for an independent food establishment and was turned down by the Irvine Company. Unless you are a well-known/uppercrust chain, you can't get your foot through the door.
 
Retail compatibility is prudent in the success of a center. The tenant mix often take years to fine tuned so each store can feed off from one another. This is the major reason retails are constantly moving around at South Coast plaza.



An empty retail space or closing of a business can hurt the image of the center big time. Shoppers subliminally perceive a retail center is not doing well so they go shop some where else.



Irvine Company requires its tenant to provide a financial portfolio demonstrating 5 years of success along with a design team who can coordinate good tenant improvements, good graphic and logo design, and an operational plan that keeps up a successful image for the very discriminate customers in Irvine.



During the last recession TIC’s Culver Plaza was in poor condition it made an exception to lease to Sam Woo and 99 Ranch Market without a financial portfolio. Like many ethnic restaurant Sam Woo has been exceptionally successful but did not turn a profit. Sam Woo operates 2 restaurants under the umbrella of one roof. There is a fancy Seafood Cuisine side with nice ambiance and upscale décor that accept credit cards while the shabby BBQ side is a hole in the wall that only accepts cash. The BBQ side offers the authentic Chinese delicacies and has a dedicated group of customers who enjoy a cheaper meal. The cash profit is not reported to Uncle Sam while the fancy restaurant next door paid all the overhead and expenditures.



This case study is to demonstrate to you even the most successful Chinese restaurant in Irvine did not do well. For the same token many other ethnic retails and restaurants have a very weak financial portfolio that TIC Retail would consider them as liabilities and does not generate traffic for other tenants.



TIC also recognizes other retails does not benefit by Asian restaurants. Parking issues surrounding Asian restaurants is not new. Parking ratio approved at 10 per 1,000 sf has never been adequate to meeting the demand of customers. This problem exists from Vancouver to San Diego. Neighboring businesses closed due to frustrated customers not finding convenient parking.



Chinese signage never works with the signage guideline. The characters are too tall and disproportionate to the signage wall. It is a nightmare to deal with. Trash and rodent issues are regularly enforced.



Many non TIC retail centers who offer cheaper rent and no portfolio mandate attracted numerous “successful” Asian retails and restaurants. These amenities are very important to support and attract Asian home buyers. TIC is very lucky to sell homes to Asians and not having to deal with the Asian restaurants and retails in its retail centers.



No “Pei Wei too much” is not a Chinese restaurant.
 
Pei Wei strikes me as exactly the type of restaurant that Irvine Company desires. It is a unit of PF Chang's, a successful concept. It has carefully spelled out site requirements and parking requirements, showing a national space plan. Sam Woo is a franchise so you would at best see the financials of the individual franchisee. The Sam Woo in Irvine seems especially suited to a non-asian clientele with ordering by menu and the dishes are prepared substantially less authentically than the Rowland Heights location.





I notice though that OC lifestyle magazines often only feature white people. Perhaps asians do not have as great a desire for plastic surgery and the aspirational lifestyle but it seems odd. I talk to white people and they often want to evade living with asian people since the parents are so much more motivated on academics. So the lifestyle magazines, Real Housewives of Orange County, and the Irvine Retail group present a sanitized version of the OC where you do not see asians driving Bentleys at South Coast Plaza. Chanel and Salvadore Ferragamo there seem to draw mainly asian clientele. Maybe in this parallel universe Japanese are still required to have horticultural permits to visit this "paradise."
 
I think there's a new Diamond Plaza going in at corner of Jamboree & Alton, they'll have a 99 Ranch there. With 3 Ranch 99 markets in Irvine, the customers will be more spread out, so I think parking with be less of an issue for few years. I recall the first couple years when they opened the store at Jeffery & Walnut, parking was pretty easy to find.





Culver Plaza's parking lot needs to be completely revamped. The place is like a maze.





IMO Asian home buyers are willing to purchase homes in "nice area" even if they have to drive 45 min to go grocery shopping.
 
<p>momopi -- Is there going to be another 99 Ranch in addtion to this new (to OC) grocery store called H-Mart at the Diamond-Jamboree? I was just doing some googling yesterday trying to find a tenant list for Diamond-Jamboree and came across this:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.diamond-jamboree.com/news.htm">http://www.diamond-jamboree.com/news.htm</a></p>

<p>That whole Diamond Jamboree center is going up really fast. I am amazed at how fast they can build those shopping centers. It seemed like the District went from open space to "open" in just a few months.</p>
 
<p>sweet, another 99 ranch to shop at!</p>

<p>"successful" = cash in the hands of the restaurant owners and not in the hands of TIC and U.S. </p>

<p>ps bkshopr the sam woo in Rowland Heights shut down. Well, at least the seafood side, I don't remember about the BBQ but I think the cash side is still open.</p>
 
I was told by others that it'd be a Ranch 99 going into that plaza, am not certain if H-Mart would take the spot.





But if they do come, good for them... hopefully with lower prices than Ranch 99 (crossing fingers). We could use some competition.
 
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