Sales Sag During Face Lift of Beverly Hills Shopping Area

Gary Stone, a men’s haberdasher in Beverly Hills, prides himself on rapidly turning over the Italian-made suits, shirts and belts he sells in his compact boutique a block and a half from Rodeo Drive.

But it’s hard to peddle designer goods when his best customers steer clear because of construction, and passersby find it tough to pass by because of torn-up streets and sidewalks.

Count Stone as a skeptic as Beverly Hills proceeds with an $18-million project to beautify the five streets that constitute its “business triangle” -- Rodeo, Beverly and Canon drives and Brighton and Dayton ways.

“I opened this business cash-happy, and it has drained me for a quarter of a million dollars,” Stone said one recent afternoon as he surveyed the unpaved stretch of Dayton in front of his 400-square-foot shop, Stone Fashions.

Although city officials say the overhaul -- entailing wider sidewalks and new pavement, streetlights and landscaping -- is proceeding on time and on budget, Stone is one of several merchants complaining of frustrated customers and lost sales.

The old pavement, he said, was scraped from Dayton Way a month ago. He is not assuaged by official assurances that the street will be repaved within the next two weeks. The phased construction work, which started last summer, is expected to stretch until fall.

In a letter to the local Chamber of Commerce, Stone said his gross sales in March plummeted to $8,900 from nearly $32,000 in the same month last year. April sales of $14,700 were well below the $26,000 of April 2003.

To add insult to financial injury, Stone said, the city cited him for poking a rack out his front door in an effort to lure customers past the Road Work Ahead signs.

At the other attitude extreme, there’s Fred Hayman, the semiretired retailer to the stars who helped push for the revamping. Encountered while strolling on Rodeo Drive, the boulevard where he operated his legendary Giorgio boutique for many years, Hayman acknowledged that “the merchants are beside themselves.” But he praised the face lift.

“This is going to be beautiful,” he said. “Rodeo is like a new street.”

It is true that the famed drive and its neighbors were looking surprisingly tattered before the work began. Walkways were covered with the black smudges of discarded gum. Even the paint on the trash cans was peeling.

The new sidewalks, those that aren’t fenced by yellow caution tape and orange plastic stanchions, look clean and more elegant. Electrical glitches have been resolved so shoppers can use the new mid-block crosswalks. And the fresh palms and flowers look as spiffy as a new Chanel handbag.

But several merchants say they have paid a price in poor business. Il Fornaio, a restaurant at Beverly and Dayton, reports that sales are down 10% from last year, at a time when restaurants elsewhere are showing strong gains.

“It’s not only us complaining,” said Massimo Marmorino, the restaurant’s general director. “Everybody I talk to in the whole triangle has been affected.”

Luce, a restaurant that opened in February at Canon and Dayton, was forced to postpone instituting a 5 to 7 p.m. happy hour because its side of Canon was a mass of rubble. The restaurant had to post its valet parking team half a block away. By the time customers realize that they’ve passed it, said night manager Patrick McCollough, traffic and construction blockades make it “impossible” to double back.

“We understand that it’s certainly going to have an effect,” said David Lightner, deputy city manager. “But we feel we’ve done everything possible to limit that impact -- with construction done at night and sidewalks open to pedestrian access during every phase.” This sort of construction, Lightner said, is done only once every 75 years or so.

Todd Steadman, director of economic development and government affairs for the Beverly Hills chamber, said a first-quarter survey showed that retailers in the area “did extremely well,” with 65% of about 130 respondents reporting sales increases over the same period in 2003. The average rise, he said, was 15%.

Meanwhile, Lightner said, the city has been hearing from merchants on other drives such as Camden and Bedford, wondering, “What about us?”