I Finally Saw the Vacancies

Thursday I was at Pickle Pop on the 3rd Street Promenade. It’s in an old Adidas store. Three courts. They’re getting a good lease on the space, which tells you something about the street. I used to think of the Promenade as the place that was always busy. Hot retail. People. Now you walk it and the vacancies are the first thing you see. A little dirty. A little in disarray. Nothing that would bring me back if I didn’t already have a reason to be there. It was depressing, and I don’t use that word lightly. We’ve been trying to rent our building on Lincoln for a couple of years. The brokers keep saying Santa Monica has too many vacancies. I thought that was an excuse. Then I stood on 3rd Street and believed them. Some cities have figured out how to turn a tired outdoor mall into a place people actually want to be. Open air. Entertainment. New shops. The Promenade isn’t that right now. When the flagship looks like this, it doesn’t stay on the flagship. It spills onto the next street, the next city, the next empty storefront someone is trying to lease.