Sporty autos help drive commerce mile-high

Alicia Robinson

If you want to spend $20,000 on a car, browse the yellow pages or

search online. If you want to spend $200,000, take a drive down Coast

Highway in Newport Beach.

Ferrari & Maserati of Orange County, a dealership on Baker Street

in Costa Mesa, will expand into Newport Beach in March 2005. It will

join luxury car dealers such as Phillips Auto, Sterling BMW and

Newport Autosport on a strip of Coast Highway named for its boating

businesses, which could now be called motorist’s mile instead.

The new dealership’s home will be the Gugasian Center, a

$5-million project being developed by business magnate Leo Gugasian,

who owns 21 Oceanfront restaurant, Doryman’s Oceanfront Inn and West

Marine boat supply sales business on Coast Highway. The new center,

now under construction, will also include Jewelry by Mardo, a

high-end jeweler now located in Lido Marina Village, and other

businesses could come later, Gugasian said.

“What I’m trying to do is revitalize that whole area and bring

better tenants in,” he said. “They call me the one-man redevelopment

agency for Newport Beach.”

While the Costa Mesa store has been doing well and will remain

open, the dealership’s owners wanted a bigger presence in Newport

Beach, said Amanda Stringfellow, marketing director for Ferrari &

Maserati of Orange County.

“A lot of people down in Newport Beach don’t really leave that

area,” she said. “We really want to be down in the mix and let people

see the cars on a daily basis.... They’re driving the kind of cars

that we’re selling.”

An unusual collection of businesses occupy Mariner’s Mile,

including restaurants and yacht brokers, but auto sales are

compatible with the mix, said Newport Beach City Councilman Don Webb,

who represents the area.

“It’s actually recreating history, because in probably the 1940s

and 1950s there were a number of car dealerships there,” he said.

The Theodore Robins Ford dealership now on Costa Mesa’s Harbor

Boulevard of Cars occupied a Coast Highway plot for more than a

decade but moved to the Harbor Boulevard spot in 1966 to gain space.

Gugasian expects the dealership to complement the others rather

than compete because it will draw people shopping in the same price

range, he said.

“It’s a proven fact that when there’s a great density of car

dealerships in an area, everyone seems to blossom,” Phillips Auto

owner Malcolm Phillips said. “We’re somewhat isolated down here from

the freeways and such, so it gives people a reason to come down to

probably the best shopping street of cars in the world.”

Local businesses expect the Gugasian Center to dovetail with other

redevelopment in the area. The nearby McDonald’s is slated for a

face-lift soon, and a 56,000-square-foot retail complex is planned

for the area between McDonald’s and Dover Drive.

With new developments and a large amount of drive-by traffic, the

area is shaping up as a solid business district, said Phillips, who

moved his business there 4 1/2 years ago.

“I thought that Mariner’s Mile was a sleeping giant, and I’ve seen

a lot of great positive expansion down here,” he said.

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.