A few years ago, I was back home in Hawaii, where a radio station was breathlessly holding a contest to send someone on a trip to Los Angeles... in order to shop at the "World Famous Beverly Center"! (Never mind that the BevCen had already been in rapid decline at that point. I'm sure the winner flew to L.A., excitedly took those escalators up to the mall... and realized that Ala Moana has the exact same stores. But across the street from a beach.)
If you've been to the Beverly Center lately... oh, who are we kidding. When was the last time you were actually at the Beverly Center? Yeah, me neither. But it's a ghost town. As the Beverly Connection finally got wise (well, it helped that most of its anchors -- Bookstar, The Good Guys, the theatre, etc. -- went out of business) and is now rebuilding, LAObserved notes that the Beverly Center is finally sprucing things up as well.
Well, to clarify, they're sprucing up the exoskeleton:
The balky escalators on the Beverly side of Beverly Center are closed for a complete replacement, putting added pressure on the elevators—never a good thing there. Target date to reopen: November 1, then work starts on the La Cienega side. The mall admits the escalators were broken down too often... An LA Observed correspondent also emails that the Cineplex theaters will close January 26, then be redesigned as a Mann Theatres complex.
Those Beverly Center theatres have long been voted worst in the city.
Meanwhile, as we noted in November, Swedish retailer H&M is finally coming to Los Angeles (having established a San Francisco presence last year). Via LAObserved, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that H&M's first two local stores will open later this year in the Beverly Center and on Colorado in Pasadena.
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