South Shore up

Tonight in super ho hum Planning Board meeting agendas, but it does mean that the Planning Board will get out of there early, the PB will be considering a proposal by the owners of South Shore to create a sort of internal design review process that will help streamline the process of bringing new stores into the shopping center.     The idea is that South Shore would get general approval from the Planning Board based on a set of design guidelines that are up for approval.

Essentially the point of all this is so that the interior spaces can have distinct facades instead of just blending into the overall South Shore architecture.   The example used at the Economic Development Commission where this plan was presented was that of See’s Candies — can you picture it in your mind’s eye? — with the white tiled facade.   It’s a unique and distinctive store front but it doesn’t take away from the overall design of the shopping center.

If you look at the design guideline manual, you’ll see some pretty nice storefronts.   If my memory serves since I haven’t been in a long time, it looks like some of those store fronts are from Santana Row in San Jose.   Anyway, they also want to put up some interior sales kiosks, like you see in other malls.

Something mentioned by the South Shore reps was that two restaurants are looking to finalize leases at South Shore.  One to take over the old Zeytini place and the other in the Kohl’s and TJ Maxx corridor.  From what it sounded like I thought I remembered the word “destination” used in reference to the restaurants, because they were mentioning how successful the restaurant section where Chiptole, Daphnes, Panera, and Jamba Juice lives.   The notable exception to this quad of awesomeness is, of course, Pearl’s which recently closed shop blaming the Food Trucks as to why they couldn’t make it work.   Anyway, it sounded like the two restaurants might be of the chain variety — before some folks freak out and complain about wanting local businesses and wanting a healthy salad option or whatever — they did that and tried that with Zeytini’s and look how well that turned out, right?

Can I also just point out to all those people who respond to the Alameda Patch questionnaire and say that they want an Italian Deli, Alameda has one, it’s called Santoro’s and it’s delicious.  Try it sometime.  It’s on the West End.

So anyway, it sounds like the two restaurants might just end up being of the chain variety, and you know what, it will probably do well if it is because it’s not as though Alameda is lousy with chain type restaurants.   Although I have to say, as someone with younger kids, the whole “fast casual” eating places like Panera and Chipotle really are a god send because you know you’re going to get your food pretty quickly and you don’t have to worry about waiting for the check, etc and so forth.

Did you know that the new Women’s Spa has opened up?  I can’t remember if I posted that here but I went up and checked it out, not to work out, don’t be silly.  I did get a massage though, ladies: they are running a gift card special for $55 you can get a massage or a facial.  Good deal.  There seemed to be a lot of traffic when I went which was a random Thursday at 9:00 in the morning so it looks like this might be a winner.  The music selection was a bit questionable considering the demographic of ladies that I saw walking through (really Ke$ha?)

The pop-up calendar store has closed up shop and it looks like the ladies hoochie fashion shop might be sticking around.

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