The developer talks about the “process” that led to the design of the centre, the “bait” used to attract international retailers and the merchandising “rhythm” created to make it appealing to all.

ENTREPRENEURS

Paul Altman, whose sheer tenacity ensured that Barbados’ most advanced shopping and leisure centre became a reality, is looking calm and confident as he sips a smoothie concocted for him by the bartender at the new Caribbean Courtyard on its south side.

It is the week before Christmas, and Limegrove Lifestyle Centre, which had a “soft” opening for Christmas 2010, continued to add to its list of international brand name retailers, welcoming in early December the opening of the Louis Vuitton store.

But over the nearly four years since its official launch at the end of February 2008 under a large tent in the middle of the cleared site that would become 85,000 square feet of luxury shopping, dining and recreation at Holetown, life has not always been easy for Limegrove’s leading lights, especially Mr. Altman.

Things came to a head when the bankers cut off funding, considering the project too risky to proceed with. The financial setback was almost too much to bear but Mr. Altman was able to regroup and find new private investors to see the project through. Today Limegrove’s largest shareholder after Mr. Altman is Jacob Hassid, the CEO of Diamonds International in Barbados; Ralph “Bizzy” Williams of Williams Industries Inc; British investor Peter Goldstein; and a consortium headed by business executive Tony King.

“Limegrove is 95% completed and 95% tenanted,” say Mr. Altman, “and now has the critical mass so that the shopping and lifestyle centre does not seem like it is under construction, a complaint made by customers over the first year.” 

A large hoarding at the southern side of the Caribbean Courtyard, where Louis Vuitton is located, shields the remaining two buildings still under construction.

“The walkway will go all the way round to link this courtyard (to a building which) will house the Burberry store and TD (Toronto Dominion) Bank,” says Mr. Altman. 

I asked Mr. Altman to talk about the major challenges, the ups and downs, encountered on a project of such scale and ambition.

“The hardest part was to get them here,” he says, referring to the luxury brand companies whose names read like a who’s who of high-end shopping. (According to Limegrove’s website, “International brands present and scheduled for opening at Limegrove include Agent Provocateur, A|X Armani Exchange, Audemars Piguet, Breitling, Cartier, Chopard, Hallmark, Louis Vuitton, M.A.C, Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren and Vilebrequin. A great number of successful Barbadian brands also feature prominently: Altman Real Estate, Barbados National Bank, Foster & Ince Cruiseworld, Kartushe, OPA! and Pure Source Barbados, to name a few”.)

 The effort took four years. However, Mr. Altman says the international stores said they had all surpassed their sales projections for the first year of business despite the economic downturn, but he added that there were some smaller stores which were not doing as well as they had expected. 

He is hoping that things will improve for them as Limegrove had finally gotten past the “build-up process,” and was now getting the “foot-flow coming through here. That is what it’s all about.”

I suggested to Mr. Altman that he had a more serene look about him than I had seen previously. “The answer to that is, there’s no question that we’ve done everything we could. Josée Atkinson, Limegrove’s project coordinator, has put mind and soul and part of her into this thing, working beyond anyone’s capacity. And we pushed together step by step, with a great team of people, which we assembled, and we had that leadership and commitment. We were not going to deterred by as few mishaps along the way.”

Paul said the mishaps had to do with funding and the “negativity that surrounds a project like this. I’ve been around a number of projects - this is not my first - so the negativity has always been there.” 

And while he says there are indeed challenges ahead and debt to repay, “We certainly are miles ahead of where we were a year or even six months ago. People are realising that this is a full project that is now starting to fit together, all the pieces are coming together.”

Those pieces include the opening of the 175-seat cinema at Limegrove. “It is state-of-the art: You can sit in your seat and press a button and someone will come and take your order and bring food to your seat. It is the most luxurious cinema in this part of the world.” A second cinema, with 150 seats has also opened. 

“We went to a great extent to create a signature-quality establishment,” he says, noting that the idea for Limegrove did not emerge overnight. As a member of the board of directors of Barbados Shipping & Trading Co. Ltd., Mr. Altman dealt with the Pierhead project for 12 years. An ambitious scheme to turn large tracts of warehousing and car park space into a luxury development with a marina on the south side of the Bridgetown Careenage, the project never got off the ground in the end, but Mr. Altman, already an experienced real estate developer, spent a lot of time “assembling ideas and the know-how for a major mixed-use project,” some of which would eventually find a creative outlet in Limegrove. 

He also repeats the point that he made speaking to the press at the launch of Limegrove in 2008, that while Barbados had many different types of ‘themed’ developments based around polo, golf, tennis and yachting, it did not have a luxury shopping and lifestyle centre. “You go to St. Barts, which is the signature high-end destination in the Caribbean, and they have all of these names there, although not as big or as nice as this. Destinations that cater to that high-end still see (the value of luxury) shopping and the experience of having an environment where people can go sit at a bar or see a movie.”

But he says, it is not just for visitors. “It is meant for everyone, and that is the key to it. You know, we’ve seen more Barbadians going through the door of Louis Vuitton than we have seen visitors so far. Barbadians are proud to know that the biggest retailers in the world have opened here.”

I asked Mr. Altman how he was able to attract the big names which had never come to Barbados before.

“Well, we started off by talking to people who have been in this business successfully for many years. I went to the Urban Land Institute (ULI) conference, where all of these people meet - managers of the biggest retailers in the world - and I asked them, ‘What is the secret to making these things happen?’ You get a little information here and there. Then we brought in a retail specialist from Atlanta who has done these projects, and we said, ‘How do you get them in, what is the bait that you use?’ 

“Of course, Barbados is a bait. The west coast is a bait. (A prime) location on the west coast is another bait. But it isn’t as simple as that. “They’re not going to come in if you build a strip mall, that is, repetitive shop fronts all in a line. So you put the bait out. You say ‘We are going to design something that is so enticing that when they see it and they think of something like this coming to Barbados, we can get their attention.’ The first thing is to get their attention. (Then we tell them that) we are going to do something in Barbados that is world class and that will fit all of your requirements in terms of ceiling heights, shop fronts, visibility, added experience. You take that and put a little booklet together, and then you go and visit them, you knock on their door. They throw you out and you come back again and you say, ‘Look, I’ve changed it now.’ I visited people in New York, Paris, London. “Once you get past one and you show them, they do their checking up on you and think, ‘Well, maybe this fellow can pull it off.’ Then they say, ‘We’re interested, keep us informed,’ but they don’t give you the money right up front. 

“And you have to take a huge risk, and you go ahead and say ‘We’re going to take the next step. The mere fact that they’re interested, we’re going to go with them.’ And that’s how you go. It’s a big risk.”

As is normal in projects of this type, Mr. Altman says, the developers built the buildings, providing the tenants with ‘shell and core’, which is just the structure with nothing on the inside. But, he adds, “In many cases they have spent more to fit out, finish and decorate their building than we spent to put it up. So that’s a commitment that you can’t measure.”

He estimates that the project has so far cost the developers about Bds$100 million, with the retailers spending that much again to outfit the interiors of their buildings.

Mr. Altman says the major retailers accepted the design shown to them for their buildings, with a few requesting only slight variations. “We worked with an architect in Boston who did the preliminary layout, and then we went to Gillespie & Steel in Barbados where we worked with Doug Luke, who has been an excellent strength to this project.”

Mr. Altman says he learned a lot about the “rhythm of merchandising and retailing,” and there was a lot of fine tuning and re-working of the overall layout “until it kind of - the best way I can describe it - revealed itself naturally. We helped to create a rhythm ourselves, because I said ‘I don’t want something with the shopping mall atmosphere.’ So the rhythm that we put in place is that we have a modern building and courtyard to the north, where we have our Zen water feature. Then we have the more traditional courtyard in the middle, the Palm Courtyard - no food or drink - then to the south we have a Caribbean courtyard.” 

Mr. Altman says that working with museum experts to design both the Nidhe Israel and Arlington House museums taught him a lot about about how people experience a place, and often it’s the subtle things that have the most impact.

For instance, Louis Vuitton has introduced some Barbadian furniture as part of its interior design. Adds Mr. Altman: “There’s a special old Barbados map on the wall, and you know who bought that map? The CEO of Louis Vuitton, Yves Carcelle. He look around (Limegrove’s environs) and loved the church across the street, the atmosphere, the feeling.”

Apart from the Burberry building, there is still the Altman building to be completed, both at the southern end of the site. The latter’s purpose is still evolving, with current plans being to make it a conference centre with a penthouse at the top. “That is the one we are keeping, as they say, in the back pocket, because as you go through a project like this you always have to have something that is held back,” notes Mr. Altman. However, he adds, “People and ideas emerge seemingly from out of nowhere - the ‘surprise element” of such projects - so the current purpose of the Altman building may give way to another as time goes by.”

Louis Vuitton opened in early December 2011 and the Burberry is expected to follow suit in December 2012, on the second anniversary of Limegrove’s soft opening. Ironically, Mr. Altman says he feels somewhat “intimidated” when he walks into Louis Vuitton, because “it is over the top. We always believe that people overseas can afford more than we can, that there are richer people overseas. But Barbados is in my head the centre of the world for wealth in terms of visitors. I know who comes here.” 

He notes that “Barbadians from all over this island, when they walk in here, they’re proud of it, and they should be. And we have said from day one it is here for Barbadians to enjoy. The cinema is going to demonstrate that again - my guess is that 90% of the people in the cinema are going to be Barbadians. You don’t have to be wealthy to come to Limegrove. It’s the aspirational point-of-view. Everyone is aspirational.”

He feels strongly that Limegrove Lifestyle Centre “also needs to be recognised for what it contributes to the branding of Barbados. We have over two dozen brand name retailers here who are bringing brand recognition to Barbados at the highest level.” •