The Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica Place should be among the most popular malls in the country … but they certainly are not.
Just a few blocks from the iconic Santa Monica Pier, the Promenade’s vacancy rate has been reported at 25%, although shoppers we spoke to guessed it was closer to 50%.
“It’s nice and quiet and relaxing,” said Kevin Taylor, visiting from England with his wife, “But you’ve got to add businesses, or there’s no point in coming.”
At the turn of the century, the Promenade was one of the most exciting destinations in Los Angeles, not just for tourists, but for local young families, and even celebrities. One shopper recalled seeing Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan and Joe Montana during different visits.
According to multiple sources, the Promenade and Santa Monica Place’s popularity first dipped around 2018, at least partly from the homeless issue in the area.
The pandemic and the looting of several stores around the same time crushed any chances of a rebound, and the unhoused in Santa Monica increased 15% in 2023 alone, according to a press release from the city.
A Santa Monica city study on foot count saw a decline from 875,000 in July of 2017 to half of that seven years later.
The famed publicist Michael Levine, a former Santa Monica resident, who authored “Broken Windows, Broken Business: How the Smallest Remedies Reap the Biggest Rewards,” a book about workplace presentation, sent an exclusive statement to the California Post calling the current Promenade “heartbreaking.”
“When you tolerate small signs of disorder—graffiti, loitering, unchecked vagrancy—you send a signal,” he said. “And people respond to signals. Customers go elsewhere. Businesses close. Investors retreat.”
Representatives for the mall declined to be interviewed, as did officials from Santa Monica, but they provided information on multiple improvements in the works.
A substation for the Santa Monica Police Department, who have doubled the number of officers patrolling the area, will soon open on the ground floor of the Santa Monica Place.
The city is also investing $60 million in street improvements, and already planted fresh landscaping at the 4th/5th Street off-ramp used to enter the Promenade area.
Santa Monica is not only lifting restrictions on alcohol permits, music and even arcade games, hoping to lure more businesses back, they are planning a music festival with Coachella producers Golden Voice, and have already been hosting monthly social events.
“They’ve done a lot to improve the place,” said Nick Paschal, who has lived in Santa Monica since 2010. “Look around and you see games for kids to play, and things for people to do. Having more events to bring people in will help with bringing more stores back.”
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