Reply #8: Just to clarify: [View All]

This Mervyn's is not in a mall. Its a stand-alone store in the middle of what I call a "revitalized Main Street" - an older, first-ring suburb that's decided to clean up and refurbish its downtown commercial drag and attract new businesses. They're all the rage in Southern California. With the exception of The Grove in the Los Angeles Fairfax district, I can't think of any new malls that have been developed in the Los Angeles area since the mid-1980's. Everyone seems to have rediscovered the nice older buildings and the vibrant streetlife that results from refurbishing a downtown.

Revitalized main streets have been popping up all over here in SoCal in the last 10 years. The're based on the success of Old Town Pasadena and Santa Monica's Third Street shopping center. In fact, in Pasadena, they even tore the roof off the old, enclosed mall, and redeveloped it by adding a cineplex and luxury apartments/condos overlooking it in order to recreate the "open-air" shopping experience in order to compete with Old Town, only a block or two away.

Alhambra's Main Street, while not as upscale as Pasadena's Old Town or Santa Monica's Third Street (both of which have been almost entirely taken over by Crate-and-Barrel-Pottery-Barn-The-Gap-Victoria's-Secret-Starbucks as the rents have risen with foot traffic) does have a new cineplex-Applebees-Johnny-Rocket's right across the street, and did not seem to be suffering or lacking for foot traffic last night. I passed several restaurants and bar/nightclub-type operations on my way to the bus stop, and they seemed to have customers at 8:30 or 9:00 and, moreover, it seemed to be the expected numbers of people for a Thursday evening late-dinner-crowd, usually a popular night for dining out.

Anyway, those are just my observations. Take it for what you will.