These are sad times, I'm sure, at each of the 600 Starbucks stores that will be closed in the coming year.
But in at least one location on the corporate hit list, fresh trouble is brewing.
For more than a year, the Starbucks on the corner of 30th Street and El Cajon Boulevard has been a brightly lighted outpost in a retail ghost town known as Renaissance at North Park.
Now that the coffee shop's days are numbered, folks can smell disaster in the air.
Like Starbucks, the chain that grew too big too fast, Renaissance at North Park was launched with lofty ambitions. It was the sort of “smart growth” civic leaders tout, even though its Mensa privileges have since been suspended.
The developer originally proposed building 30 townhomes on the 2½-acre site, replacing some homes, a pawn shop, a beauty salon, and other small retail stores.
But the city wanted high-density housing and public spaces, hoping to reclaim a gritty street corner that was a magnet for hookers, gangsters and the homeless. Soon the kitchen was crowded with cooks.
The result: a four-story complex that would have affordable senior housing, stylish townhomes and a dynamic retail center, plus an Art Deco clock tower and a public courtyard with tables and chessboards.
It's been 14 months since it opened. Let's take an inventory.
Senior housing? Check.
Stylish townhomes? Check.
Clock tower? Check.
Dynamic retail center?
Checkmate.
The storefronts are empty, save two:
An H&R Block tax office, which is now closed, and the Starbucks, which opened at a time when the coffee chain's plans for world domination rivaled the oil industry's.
(No one has improved on the 1998 Onion headline: “New Starbucks Opens in Rest Room of Existing Starbucks.”)
The remaining 8,279 square feet of street-level office space is forlorn, posted with signs for the benefit of the hookers, gangsters and homeless people, who haven't gone away.
“Loiters beware,” they read. “This area is under security camera surveillance 24 hours. Police are being notified!! Code 647.”
A code 647, for those of you without police scanners, covers a wide variety of storefront activity: prostitution, begging, loitering, illegal lodging, lewd acts and public drunkenness.
All of which, residents say, they can still see regularly. Judith Jeanotte, a former flight attendant, said prostitution is so prevalent that johns solicit her on the sidewalks. She's 64.
But her bigger concern are the interior corridors and parking areas that are shielded from the street. The retail garage was long ago boarded up to keep the homeless out.
“Once the Starbucks goes, the gangs are moving in,” Jeanotte predicted.
Joe Bates, who manages the 96 units of senior housing for the San Diego Interfaith Housing Foundation, said Starbucks' foot traffic is the biggest factor in keeping out undesirables.
As it is now, Bates said, the pimps are so brazen that they drive into the parking garage to drop off their girls.
“Starbucks brings in a good amount of business-class, family-type people,” he told me. “The gang members and whatnot see that and most of the time they stay away from here. When they see it's empty, it's going to be a hangout spot.”
No one knows when that day will come. Starbucks employees say they've been told only that they'll get 30 days notice.
I visited the store last week, at an hour of peak caffeine consumption, and could see why it caught the attention of the corporate bean counters.
The place was unnaturally subdued. I counted one squatter with a laptop, and had the run of eight tables and four love seats. And without all that grinding, whipping and frappe-ing, I even heard the music.
Regulars love it, and say it's popular with the seniors who live upstairs. Some plan their weeks around a trip to Starbucks by walker; others rendezvous there for dates.
Long before Starbucks decided to pull the plug, I'd been monitoring progress at Renaissance, which opened with much hoopla in May 2007.
In January, I discussed its problems with project manager Joe Mottola, who works for the developer, Carter Reese & Associates.
I was interested, for example, whether anyone actually played chess at those concrete tables in the public breezeway. “I had nothing to do with that,” Mottola said. “This is what the city wanted. This was done under the city's guidance.”
Fair enough. But what were they going to do about the empty retail space? Maybe they could bring back the pawn shop and beauty salon?
Mottola said he was at work on a strategy to entice new tenants. It was built around – I kid you not – promoting Starbucks as the anchor tenant. Looks like it's time for Plan B.
Mottola's boss, Reese Jarrett, told me yesterday that he thinks he can persuade Starbucks to give the location a second chance.
All he needs, he said, is 10 months and an infusion of capital, which he hopes the city will provide by buying (not leasing) office space for a community services center.
Will that impress Starbucks?
“We'll have to sit down and have that discussion,” he said.
Wish him luck. The big clock in the tower is ticking.
Gerry Braun: (619) 542-4563; gerry.braun@uniontrib.com
