Rick Caruso nabbed headlines when he and Elyse Walker held a press conference last week to announce the luxury retailer’s reopening next year.
This will move the Elyse Walker flagship from its original location on Antioch Street to Caruso’s Palisades Village next year when the upscale luxury center is slated to reopen. The announcement was seen as a tangible step forward for a community facing a massive, multi-year rebuild post-Palisades Fire (with a similar uphill battle for residents of Altadena devastated by the Eaton Fire).
The media was in full force at the press conference. After, came the standard headlines that Palisades Village would reopen next year with Elyse Walker. Still, the question is what community will be living in the Palisades in 2026 to support the retail?
As of June 1, 82 permits for 64 addresses have been issued by the city for rebuilding. That’s a sliver of the over 6,500 structures destroyed and over 800 damaged in the Palisades Fire, according to Los Angeles County. The city has also said “hundreds” more applications are currently in review.
There’s a disconnect between what marketing machines are spoon feeding the press and the feasibility of rebuilding thousands of structures at once.
Some guess a three- to five-year construction zone for the Palisades, that would make living or visiting difficult – especially when factoring in the challenges simply getting into and out of the community.
Luxury Demand
The luxury market has had its challenges coming out of the pandemic.
A report from McKinsey & Co. in January suggested brands’ ability to raise prices have been capped. Meanwhile, aspirational consumers are not spending as freely anymore on high-ticket items. There’s also the China factor, with many apparel brands not seeing a recovery they had hoped for in the country.
Ultimately, luxury’s global growth is projected to be 1 percent to 3 percent between 2024 and 2027, according to McKinsey.
Elyse Walker is taking Sunset Boulevard-fronting space at Palisades Village previously occupied by Saint Laurent.
The luxury label opened there in Fall 2023 as part of a trio of new store openings at the Village that also included Toteme and Jacques Marie Mage. Before Saint Laurent, Amazon Books occupied the space from 2018 to 2022.
If the Palisades is to be a construction zone in the near term – what most would agree it will be – would people want to visit or navigate that? Or might some prefer to shop in nearby centers, such as the Brentwood Country Mart or Malibu Country Mart? There’s also a newer project called Cross Creek Ranch that’s being billed as the “town square” for Malibu.
With Pacific Coast Highway having been reopened ahead of the Memorial Day Weekend, access back into these centers is made easier.
Sorting Priorities
This isn’t on knock Palisades Village or its ability to attract shoppers. In fact, many viewed the press conference as a reminder that normalcy will eventually return to the community.
Visitors will inevitably come back to what is one of the finest examples of retail placemaking in Caruso’s project. However, before press conferences about retail centers and boutiques opening, reporters might want to press the city, insurance carriers and mortgage companies for what they’re doing – or not doing – to facilitate the actual next step in this rebuild.
It’s not necessarily to highlight what stores will be operational next year.
It’s about when homeowners will receive funds from their insurance carriers. Or questions around why lenders are holding insurance settlements captive in an escrow account not collecting interest and inaccessible to the very people looking to rebuild. And, what did Hagerty Consulting – the Chicago-based disaster recovery firm hired on an emergency basis – do for $10 million in the weeks and months post-wildfires.
Lower on that priority list for most, is when Erewhon or Alo Yoga reopens.
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