Our final visit to The Grove was very well structured and the group really enjoyed the overview from our 3 presenters Rick Lemmo, Senior Vice President of Community Relations, Paul Kurzawa, Executive Vice President of Operations Manager & Matt Simon, General Manager of The Grove. Listening to Rick Lemmo, Caruso Affiliated (the property company behind The Grove) has created a unique outdoor retail environment that offers free activities, movies, and many seated areas to just sit and experience life. The Grove offers a different experience to anywhere in the world. It is a one stop shop (retail, food, movies, free entertainment) and The Grove ‘model' was the first in a series of customer-centric developments. Rick and Paul admitted that Caruso's former development model consisted of developing malls with the idea of pushing the design and facilities onto the customer and really selling the product from the top down. What is different about The Grove is that they surveyed the local community before the project commenced and asked them what they wanted and the result of that was the very community-based centre that is The Grove. Through their experience, this is also the increased value the customer of today is looking for in tougher economic times.
The centre has exceeded expectation in terms of customer traffic and generates higher turnover than other centres in LA, despite having limited tenant space and no easy freeway access. Rick was very proud to tell us that the centre attracts 18 million people per year, which is 6 million more per year than Disneyland! Their tenant mix is interesting and includes all the majors: Apple, Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria's Secret, to name a few, but what is key for the Caruso team is that the centre is not over-tenanted – but still boasts 9 flagships. With any upscale centre, the added services are never-ending….valet parking, concierge (that will actually book hotels and flights for you also!), a loyalty program as well as free entertainment events such as celebrity concerts, free movie screenings and a kids club which focuses on kids having fun in a safe, secure environment.
After our boardroom meeting, Matt and Rick took us on a guided tour of the centre and we all agreed that even the vastness of Dubai's Mall's could not compare to the community feel of The Grove. Matt commented that we would have all noticed the very well groomed gardens and surroundings but would not have seen any signs of housekeeping. This is part of the luxury feel of the centre; security cameras and services such as cleaning will never be obvious to the customer but will be kept up in the background to maintain the high level of safety and service. This increased focus on the end customer is also maintained throughout their extensive secret shopper program. This program is run every month and retail outlets are surveyed and Caruso expects each outlet to receive a certain rating to maintain overall service excellence. Caruso also invests in training their retail tenants. After our walk-through we were all keen to explore more of the centre and it wasn't too big that we were able to get through it all in just a couple of hours!
The group hearing from Rick Lemmo, Senior Vice President of Community Relations, about the retail tenants at The Grove
Being shown the sites of The Grove from Matt Simon, Centre Manager
