Saratoga News

Bob Cancellieri, who owns the Saratoga Plaza Bakery, worries about empty stores in the plaza.

Track Record

Lack of foot traffic scares off prospective shopkeepers

By Sarah Lombardo

Saratoga's historic Village has been the center of debate for years. Its business climate, retail mix and appearance have all been discussed casually over coffee at local shops and aggressively over agendas at business organization meetings.

Some say the quaint businesses on Big Basin Way have never quite recovered from the street and parking area construction completed nearly 10 years ago, when more than a dozen stores moved out or simply closed their doors for lack of customers. Even today, several empty storefronts greet visitors entering the Village from Saratoga Avenue: Studio Kicks' former site stands empty; for a long time, four spaces stood empty in Saratoga Plaza, and while two of those spots are now occupied, the tenants are nonretail businesses unlikely to bring in much foot traffic. The Saratoga Wine and Spirits site stood empty for months and was only filled about six weeks ago; and, until recently, the Village was in danger of losing the Saratoga Drug Store.

Others say business in the Village is on the rise for those retailers who actively promote their shops and offer specialized goods or services, despite first impressions given by empty windows. Still others argue that Saratoga's Village has turned into a restaurant row, attracting plenty of diners but offering little else to entice customers and their wallets.

So just how is the Village doing?

For some retailers, reports are not upbeat. Lillian Benson, owner of Benson's Antiques, said she makes her money at antique shows held outside the area several times a year, not in her day-to-day business in Saratoga. When Starbucks Coffee Company applied to move into the Village last year, several Village retailers said the coffee giant's name recognition and its potential draw of customers to the area were desperately needed to revitalize Big Basin Way business.

But for restaurant owners, business is brisk. Restaurants in the Village are slowly and steadily earning the city a reputation as one of the Bay Area's best dining locations. Add the dinner music or jazz available at some spots, and the Village offers quite an entertaining night life.

In addition, the return of the music series at the Mountain Winery last summer meant an increase in business for some restaurants and better exposure for others as concert-goers drove through the Village on their way into the hills.

Kookie Fitzsimmons, owner of Corinthian Flowers, said her sales have increased by about 25 percent in the past year, as has business at a number of skin and nail salons that dot Big Basin Way. And Highline Imports, an exotic car brokerage, reports steady sales of its line of expensive vehicles after the company's move to Big Basin Way from Campbell just weeks ago.

But even shops that are doing well admit that foot traffic in the Village is lacking.

Commercial real estate broker Warren Lampshire said the lack of pedestrian traffic in the Village often results in the Village losing potential merchants, some that might have contributed to a healthier retail mix.

"When I have prospective customers, I intentionally walk them through the Village, and the comment I receive is that there is no walk-in traffic," he said. "I have many people who go to Los Gatos after walking through the Village."

Some merchants, Lampshire said, are willing to pay almost double Saratoga's average rent of $1.65 per square foot over in Los Gatos because of the higher pedestrian traffic in that town.

Village business owners have strong opinions about what would attract browsers to the Village.

Lampshire, whose office is located on Big Basin Way, said he believes the upkeep of the Village plays a part in making it more attractive to potential merchants.

"The Village needs to be dressed up, and the private owners aren't going to do it," he said, adding that interested renters sometimes ask if such plans are in the works for the Village.

Sheila Arthur, executive director of the Saratoga Chamber of Commerce, said a survey of Village merchants confirmed that others felt the same way. Such concerns as trash bins being emptied more often and streets being kept cleaner were among the top requests by merchants, according to Arthur. "These are things that we can take to the city," she said, "and our new city manager [Larry Perlin] has been very responsive."

Perlin, however, said, "The streets are as clean as you are going to find anywhere." He noted that the streets are swept once a week, trash is emptied twice a week and landscaping is done by city crews.

But cleanliness is just one criterion by which a retail area is judged. If retail shops are open and busy, an area looks healthy. Empty storefronts give just the opposite impression, and some merchants say the empty storefronts in the Village could be hurting business in general.

Bob Cancellieri, owner of the Saratoga Plaza Bakery, said that although his regular customers aren't affected by the empty store right next to his bakery and sandwich shop, visitors to the area might get the wrong idea. "I think sometimes it has a negative effect [on business]," he said. "People might think, 'Jeez, criminy, this is becoming a ghost town.' "

Restaurateur Cooper said he thinks getting rid of those empty spots and increasing the variety of retail in the Village would improve business. "We need to fill in the empty spots we have now, and we need to fill them with a good mix of businesses," Cooper said. "We as a community need to figure out what we want to see in the Village and then recruit those kinds of businesses."

Cooper isn't the only one who thinks so. Perlin pointed out the kinds of businesses now in the Village don't provide everyday items that residents, let alone visitors, might need. "If we're talking about keeping Saratoga dollars in Saratoga, let's face it, Saratogans' needs are a lot more than the Saratoga Village can supply," he said. "The kind of shopping that is done in the Village is shopping for pleasure and not shopping for need."

Don Wolfe, Saratoga's mayor and the City Council's liaison to the Chamber of Commerce and the Saratoga Business Development Council, said that although Saratoga provides "one of the finest village experiences in any Western town," measures could be taken to increase the area's business. "What we still need is the mix of businesses that will cause people to visit several shops when they are visiting the area," he said.

But in the Village's case, it may not be as easy as simply recruiting new businesses to the Village Plaza or cleaning it up. As Lampshire pointed out, the property management firm in charge of the center is located in Oakland, and the owners are out-of-state. Over the months, local merchants have complained that the owners have been unresponsive to complaints that the center is in desperate need of attention.

Wolfe takes the need for variety one step further: "The key is to have goods and services that will attract people from 9 till 9."

Which brings up that great dining/night life reputation Saratoga is earning. Wolfe and others have been suggesting for years that stores along Big Basin Way stay open later to take advantage of the crowds of diners that flock to Village restaurants. If evening sales don't result from the increase in hours, Cooper said, the diners who stroll through stores before or after their meals may well see something that will bring them back to the Village the next time they want to shop. Could it work?

"If the whole Village stayed open," Benson said. "And it wouldn't have to be every night of the week. Maybe only Thursdays or Fridays."

Matthew Winter, assistant manager at Images of Nature, a Los Gatos wildlife photography studio, said he believes his store benefits from staying open later in the evenings. "We get a fair amount of traffic," he said. "I think it would help both [Los Gatos and Saratoga] if businesses stayed open later. I think Saratoga is really cute, but that's one of the reasons I never go there; nothing's open."

Said Perlin, a resident of the Village: "When everything is closed down, it's not a very inviting experience ... but it's got to be an all-or-nothing thing. I think you've got to have at least 50 percent of the stores open to have that kind of effect, that kind of atmosphere."

What most merchants and city officials agree on, however, is that an effort has been made in the past few years to try to improve business in the Village, and even the city as a whole. Arthur is quick to point out the establishment of the Saratoga Business Development Council and TEAM Saratoga, both business organizations developed through the Chamber and the city to bring merchants together to work on self-promotion. In addition, Arthur said, the Chamber has more recently begun working with Village merchants to identify additional concerns they have or changes they would like to see in the Village, such as speed bumps or an extra stop sign along Big Basin Way, brighter streetlights, new newspaper racks and a plan to attract younger people to the area. But most importantly, Arthur said, the Chamber wants to try to help merchants learn the fine art of promotion.

The Chamber has also been in contact with the managers of the Saratoga Plaza, which many call the blight on the Village. "There has been a lot of conversation on the fact that it's time [for renovations to the plaza]," she said. Although the managers seem to have warmed up to the idea of updating the center, Arthur said no definite plans are in the works yet.

For the city's part, Perlin said Saratoga has taken on a number of projects to improve business, from streetscape improvements, to assisting in signage concerns, to providing staff support for projects such as the Villagewide valet program begun in November. "For the most part, I think the city has done quite a bit of promotion," he said. "But like a lot of things, you will have a lot of people who will say that it isn't enough." But, Perlin added, the city is not necessarily in the business of promoting business.

"That's the $64,000 question," he said. "How much economic development should the city be involved in when we are basically a minimum-services city?"

And a minimum business city. According to Perlin, about 5 percent of the city's land is zoned for commercial use. Sales-tax revenue for all business in Saratoga, he said, is about $950,000 a year. "That's peanuts," he said.

"Saratoga wasn't meant for a lot of retail. We were going to be a low-key residential area. My intuition tells me that there's not a whole lot [more] the city could do to improve the economic viability of the Village."

And that brings it back to the merchants.

Lampshire said merchants have to make a point of telling property managers and landlords that certain areas need to be improved. "The tenants should be the ones to complain to the property managers on a continual basis," he said.

However, some question just how many of the merchants actually want to be involved in aggressively improving business in the Village. Merchants who spoke anonymously complained that as hard as they work to improve business in the Village, there seemed to be just as many merchants who did not depend on income from their shops and so might not be willing to put in extra hours to improve overall Village retail. "For some, this is just something they like to do. For others, it's a write-off," one merchant said.

"I think there is a phenomenon in the Village where we have a lot of businesses that aren't businesses. They're hobbies," Perlin said. "Those kinds of places aren't interested in what happens to the Village. They're happy with what they've got."

Perlin also questions just how many residents would actually want to see Saratoga look like Carmel, Los Gatos or Santa Cruz. "You walk down those streets and the sidewalks are jammed," he said. "And some would say, 'Aren't we lucky our sidewalks are jammed?' "

"The No. 1 problem with the Village is that Saratogans don't shop in the Village," Benson said. "If people in Saratoga will come here to shop, they'd be amazed what they will find here."

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