It’s been seven weeks since the Palisades fire erupted, ripping through the Westside neighborhood of Los Angeles, leaving a trail of devastation, loss, and death — and the aftermath is still unfolding. The fire, which took 24 days to be extinguished, burned through over six thousand structures, and claimed the lives of at least 12 people, is projected to be the costliest fire in California history. Fifty-six percent of all structures in the Pacific Palisades were leveled, according to Cal Fire’s latest assessment.
For retailers in the area, the immediate future remains a question mark. While many businesses were lost, the ones at Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village are still standing.
“You’ve probably heard that the Palisades Village survived the fire,” Corinne Verdery, chief executive officer of Caruso, told WWD during an interview. “What comes after that, though?”
Currently, the 35 fashion tenants — including local brick-and-mortars Jennifer Meyer and Towne by Elyse Walker to L.A.-based brands Buck Mason, Cult Gaia, A.L.C., to international labels Bottega Veneta, Isabel Marant, and Saint Laurent — are working with their own insurance providers to assess damage from smoke and water sprinklers.
“We’ve all been on the property now once it was safe to do so, and it was a very emotional but organized process of making sure that all the tenants and their insurance providers got into their spaces,” Verdery said, noting that the mall did sustain damage from smoke and embers — including the loss of wooden decks in residential units and office units. “That needs repair, but minor compared to the damage that happened to a lot of the older buildings around us.”
Private firefighting company employees, hired to protect Rick Caruso’s Palisades Village mall from the Palisades fire, gather near their vehicles at the mall on Jan. 15.
AFP via Getty Images
As videos of the devastation have circulated, so have questions around the city’s response to the fires, the lack of water at firefighters’ disposal, the failure of hydrants — and the use of private firefighters, some of whom were employed by Caruso to save Palisades Village. According to Verdery, Caruso’s emergency response team brought their own water trucks and fought “shoulder to shoulder” with Los Angeles’ firefighters to combat the blaze. “We look at it as we’re not using city resources to protect our property, and we were with them fighting the fires around our property, and they were using our resources — the water trucks and whatnot,” she said. “So it’s a great partnership in any of the jurisdictions.”
It was the 2017 Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that inspired Caruso’s emergency response team. That blaze, which burned through 281,893 acres and 1,063 structures, encroached on Caruso’s Rosewood Miramar Hotel in Montecito while it was under construction — but was ultimately kept at bay. “One of the reasons why we learned about private firefighting teams is because in Montecito, the fire department had to focus on the residential areas, so we needed to have a team in place to make sure that our commercial property was going to get protected,” Verdery said.
The threat prompted Caruso to build the upscale Palisades Village with fire prevention in mind. “We used various materials that are non-combustible, commercial-grade, fire-resistant glass and so forth [that] were able to sustain with the heavy winds and the fire,” Verdery said.
While the use of private firefighters has remained a lightning rod issue in Los Angeles, for Buck Mason cofounder and chief executive officer Erik Allen Ford, Caruso’s response was “inspiring” and a benchmark of leadership. “I think what they did was remarkable with the contingency plan and the private firefighting,” said Ford, who lost his house in Rustic Canyon during the fire. “It literally made me go, ‘OK, how can I prepare as an operator?’”
Jennifer Meyer’s store at Palisades Village.
Max Knight
For L.A.-born jewelry designer Jennifer Meyer, who is committed to reopening her store at the Palisades Village, the road ahead is going to be a long one. “I think the stores will have to be gutted,” said Meyer, adding that she was “very lucky” her jewelry was in an airtight safe and much of her inventory was stored at their studio — though her furniture and fixtures will need to be replaced. “The smoke damage is real. The stores are there, but they’re not there.”
Buck Mason’s Ford, who sells men’s clothing, is working with his insurance adjuster on cataloguing inventory that was lost, and said that insurance may also be covering the store’s rent as part of business interruption insurance. “I know that our team is working actively with the insurance carriers to work through that.”
Verdery didn’t share whether or not Palisades Village is actively collecting rent but did say that the mall plans on “working one by one” with tenants “to figure out coverage of rent and other obligations,” she said. “Our goal is to support them and get them open. We’ve done it before in COVID times and we’re ready to do it again.”
Caruso, which has relocated many of its Palisades Village employees to other properties like the Grove or the Americana, is also willing to work with tenants on the radius restrictions outlined in their contracts, she said, and in driving awareness if they want to open pop-ups elsewhere.
For Meyer, who has been focused on supporting her community in her role on the board of Baby2Baby and by launching an “L.A. necklace” with net proceeds going to aid wildfire relief, it’s too early to plan a pop-up. But her only store’s closure affects the business, she said. When asked if she’s considered a pop-up, Meyer replied, “I’ve been thinking about what a pop-up would look like, where I would do it, how it would feel, you know, maybe some trunk shows. The possibilities would be Brentwood or Beverly Hills.”
Jennifer Meyer’s LA necklace to benefit wildfire relief in Los Angeles.
Courtesy of Jennifer Meyer
Buck Mason, meanwhile, has nearby locations on Abbot Kinney and at Westfield Century City. “We’re lucky that we have two locations close and we’re able to service some of those customers,” Ford said.
But as shoppers turn to locations away from the Palisades, could West Los Angeles retail hubs shift with them? “You have people temporarily shifting neighborhoods, and then you have people permanently shifting neighborhoods, and it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out on the residential and commercial side,” Ford said. “West L.A. is a tremendous market. It’ll thrive long-term, I’m confident. But it certainly will shift around, and I don’t know that there’s any obvious new winner. Like, does Montana win? Does Brentwood Country Mart win? Does Beverly Hills win? It’s probably all of the above. How permanent or temporary that is will correlate to how strong and how fast the recovery is.”
Montana Avenue in Santa Monica and Brentwood are absorbing some of the businesses that lost their spaces in the Palisades fire, according to Christine Deschaine, senior vice president at Kennedy Wilson Brokerage — but vacancies are hard to come by because “2024 was very robust,” she said.
Retail spaces are also scarce in Malibu, Beverly Hills, and West Hollywood, according to Jay Luchs, vice chairman of Newmark Knight Frank in Los Angeles. “There’s really nothing. So you’re not seeing any real moves, because there’s no space available,” he said. “The retail environment in L.A. is really as strong as it’s ever been, despite what’s happened around Palisades. And, at some point, Palisades will come back. We’re talking many years out, but it’s still such an amazing area, and it will get rebuilt.”
When will that be? “I will tell you, we are not going to open this year,” Meyer said. “There’s not a chance.” Most are estimating it will be 2026 or later.
Despite the uncertainty, Verdery said “everyone seems very committed to reopening.” No retailers have said they do not wish to reopen, a representative of Caruso confirmed Thursday. WWD reached out to Saint Laurent to see if it is staying but received no response. The response from Stockholm-based Toteme was “no comment.”
California-based retailers voiced their support.
“I love my store. I love the Palisades. I love the community the most,” Meyer said. “All the designers — Elyse Walker, Andrea Lieberman at A.L.C., and the guys at Angelini — we have all been there from the very beginning. It’s such a tight community of people that really want to back each other and help each other. We will be back, and we will be stronger than ever, but it’ll take a minute, and we’re gonna figure it out. We’re all just giving each other advice and asking what they’re going through and what you’re going through, and how we can help.”
When Palisades Village does reopen, the Caruso team anticipates that “the rebuilding around [the Palisades] will still be ongoing,” said Verdery. “Everyone believes that this community is resilient and is going to come back stronger than ever.”
