■ Business owner details shortcomings of Southampton Shopping Center

By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Gene Pedrotti stood before members of the city Economic Development Board on Wednesday and showed them photos of the shopping center where his business resides.

With each projected picture, the owner of Ace Hardware pointed out small changes and nagging problems that over the years, he said, have combined to make the Southampton Shopping Center a less desirable business location than it once was.

Pedrotti’s observations included mismatched and damaged signs, donation dropoff boxes that take up parking spaces, dead-looking trees, poorly concealed graffiti, bad Internet access and a “For Lease” sign that was meant to be temporary but that is permanently placed in front of the shopping center — “set in concrete,” he said.

“That permanent sign in the front — I hate it!” he said. “That just says, ‘You can’t fill up, what’s wrong with you?’ It’s as if I put up a sign that said ‘Hiring’ 365 days a year. They’d say, ‘What’s wrong, Pedrotti, you can’t keep any employees?’”

Pedrotti characterized the shopping center as “a little bit tawdry” and said frustration was growing among its tenants — those that haven’t already moved out.

“It’s deteriorating now. I’m concerned for five years from now, ten years, fifteen — what’s that center going to look like?”

His presentation was the continuation of a discussion that began at a meeting between shopping center merchants and city staff in May. What had been intended as a briefing on the city’s Business Development Action Plan became an airing of grievances over management of the center, which has been owned since 1998 by Weingarten Realty, a Houston, Texas-based firm.

Since then, more merchants have left the center or are planning to do so, Pedrotti said: Southampton Pet Hospital left in 2011 after 19 years, Bookshop Benicia is planning to relocate to First Street, and Harpin’s Beauty Supply and Salon will leave in September.

Pedrotti told the EDB that Southampton Shopping Center suffers from what amounts to “an absentee landlord situation. That’s what it feels like,” he said, and he showed photos of the businesses that recently left or had “We are moving” signs in their windows.

“There’s a trend going when you’re losing really good, solid, long-term businesses that are a valuable contribution. That’s a problem,” he said.

Pedrotti observed that the pattern of shopping at the center has changed over the 20 years his business has been located there.

“At one time you’d make one stop, you would do all of your shopping. Now it’s one stop for one shop, that’s it,” he said. “That’s problematic when you’re not getting the synergy between businesses.”

Another problem, he said, is that over the last two decades the center has lost a significant number of parking spaces.

“First there was a need for some cell towers. Well, they put one in on the back side, took three or four spaces, then another one, lost some more spaces. A loading zone was created. Raley’s (supermarket) put in a drive-through. We now have the deposit center required to take cans and recycling.

“I think we’ve lost 25, maybe 30 spaces in 20 years, and it’s now so bad in the back that my employees are having to park on the front side, and that is absolutely forbidden. You really don’t want that to happen.”

A key problem, he said, has been the acceptance of what he termed “Class B” tenants into the shopping plaza.

“I have nothing against any business at all,” Pedrotti said. “But at the same time I have some opinions about the center.”

Goodwill, which moved to the center this year, exemplifies the problem, Pedrotti said. “Nothing against Goodwill — I donate to them frequently, as many of you do.” But, “when Weingarten shows up at the same conventions as the Ace Hardware lease manager shows up to, they’re pushing the center as a ‘Class A’ center, then they put a ‘Class B’ tenant in it. I have a problem with that.”

Goodwill, he said, is more a deposit center than an actual retail establishment. “For every truck that comes in to sell goods, they’re taking two trucks away. There’s all the chaos going on — it’s a deposit store, not a retail store. Consequently, there’s no tax dollars in it for you folks.”

Pedrotti said the Benicia Chamber of Commerce has reached out to Southampton merchants, and some meetings have taken place that may lead to the re-establishment of a merchant’s association, something that existed loosely before Weingarten Realty bought the property.

But more needs to be done, he said. “We need to do something for a Web presence for marketing, take back Halloween, create some more events, etc. We’re looking at that right now.”

He advised opening up communication with Weingarten, something he said is now happening to a degree. “They need to be shown we’re a far more activist community than they would probably care to have. We’re very proud in Benicia, we’re very active in Benicia, and they probably don’t have a clue just how we feel about it.

“I think from the board’s perspective, the city’s perspective, and the community’s perspective, you need to weigh in and come to understand what is important to you in the Southampton center, not just from the tenant perspective but your own perspective, and share with Weingarten and say, ‘No, this is what we want. This is our community.’”

He also encouraged sharing with the merchants what products and services are most sought by the community. “But whatever you do, you need to drive sales tax. That’s important. Drive traffic, drive sales tax.”

EDB member Ellen Kolowich thanked Pedrotti for his presentation and said she was “glad” he made it.

“I’m a long-time resident of Southampton. I watched the center being built. I’ve been really discouraged with what I have seen over the last few years,” she said. “I’m glad the city is focusing on it.”

She said one of her concerns is how much income is being drained from the community because residents choose to shop elsewhere.

“If we can’t do routine shopping from the shopping center, that’s all the more reason to go to the mall,” she said.