Skechers breaks ground on PCH project
Skechers executives and local elected officials celebrate the groundbreaking at Hermosa Beach design center. From left: Bruce Moe, Manhattan Beach City Manager; Skechers CFO John Vandemore; Tim Ball, vice president for commercial development; Peter Mow, senior vice president of real estate and construction; COO David Weinberg; President Michael Greenberg; Manhattan Mayor Steve Napolitano; Mary Campbell, Hermosa mayor pro tem; Nancy Hersman, Manhattan mayor pro tem; Manhattan City Councilmember David Lesser; Hermosa City Councilmember Hany Fangary. Photo by J.P. Cordero (CivicCouch.com)
Looking out at an expanse of recently graded Hermosa Beach earth, Skechers president Michael Greenberg on Friday afternoon offered a series of timelines for the land on which he stood, the future site of Skechers’ design center.
There were the roughly three-and-a-half years that the project took to make its way through the entitlement process in Hermosa and Manhattan Beach. There was the decade that passed since the shoe manufacturer acquired the parcels along Pacific Coast Highway where the center, along with new executive offices, will be located. And then there was the 26-year reverse horizon, taking Greenberg back to the company’s founding in a condo on The Strand in Manhattan.
About a dozen people worked inside that condo near 26th Street, Greenberg recalled, cheekily admitting that the parcel was zoned for no such thing. They moved on only after discovering that the phone company at the time limited residential properties to four phone lines, and secured 1,800 square feet of office space in downtown Manhattan.
On Friday afternoon, Greenberg and other Skechers executives were joined by local elected officials in a groundbreaking ceremony for some considerably larger digs. The new design center and executive offices in Hermosa, along with an expansion of an existing building and another new building just to the north in Manhattan, constitute more than 170,000 square feet of new space, and bring the company’s total office footprint in the South Bay to more than 330,000 square feet.
The expansion, Greenberg said, embodied the company’s commitment to the South Bay. The company has outgrown its existing headquarters, at 330 South Sepulveda Boulevard in Manhattan, and has been leasing space in office towers along Rosecrans Avenue for several years. Greenberg said that although Skechers, whose annual sales exceeded $4 billion in 2017, could have built in one of the L.A. County cities that cater specifically to business, such as in Vernon, they chose to stay close to their roots.
“Skechers has tended to think long-term and into the future,” Greenberg said. “And we wanted to maintain a footprint in the South Bay — no pun intended.”
The new complex got the okay to begin construction from the planning departments in Manhattan and Hermosa last year, following a drawn-out process that saw several design changes in response to resident concerns. Previous versions had included a bridge over 30th street connecting the design center and executive offices; now an underground tunnel will connect the two. At one point, the company included plans for an open-to-the-public coffee shop on the southwest corner of Longfellow and PCH to respond to resident concerns about the company dominating the area; Skechers pulled those plans after it became clear that potential traffic and parking impacts from the coffee shop were a bigger worry.
Initial meetings on the project featured residents opposed to the project’s size and traffic impacts, concerns that remain for those living nearby. But on Friday, officials from Hermosa and Manhattan donned shovels and hard hats, and spoke about the benefits of having Skechers choose to build in the Beach Cities. Mary Campbell, Hermosa’s mayor pro tem, touted the hundreds of new jobs that will be associated with the new facilities. When they open, Campbell said, Skechers will be Hermosa’s largest employer. She said the city is hoping the added workforce will boost daytime foot-traffic in the city’s downtown during the lunch hour.
Manhattan Mayor Steve Napolitano highlighted Skecher’s charitable giving as a reason for gratitude that the company was expanding its presence. The company’s foundation has donated more than $11 million to local school districts and to organizations serving children with special needs.
“There is no better corporate citizen in the South Bay than Skechers,” he said.
Building the large project in a dense, coastal community with some of the country’s highest land values was challenging from the beginning. Officials acknowledged during the planning process that the new facilities are likely to make traffic along already-congested PCH worse, but said that Skechers, as an office use in which people arrive and stay until going home at the end of the work day, was likely less intense than other commercial possibilities for the land. David Hibbert, of DFH Architects, who designed the buildings, said the ambitious plan deviated from current trends in building office space.
“People don’t build corporate campuses in places like this. It’s unusual and it’s going to be special for a long time,” Hibbert said.
Construction is expected to be completed in 2022. Asked in an interview whether the company had plans to expand further along the PCH corridor, Greenberg said that although the company has traditionally acquired property well in advance of using it — it acquired the 330 South Sepulveda parcel 10 years before it opened in 2011, and the land for the design center during the Great Recession — the new buildings “represent a very large addition of space: 170,000 square feet,” meaning there is less need to find more buildings. He added that, in the last 15 years, the company had expanded globally, opening offices and design facilities abroad.
“This will satisfy for a long time,” Greenberg said.