Palms and water fill the courtyard at The Gardens on El Paseo, 73545 El Paseo, the open-air luxury centre anchoring the middle of the street. It opened in 1998 and has been extended since, and it concentrates the names — the international fashion houses and the department store — that let El Paseo make its Rodeo Drive comparison with a straight face. Look at how it is built.
Two levels wrap a landscaped courtyard with water in it, the parking is pushed to the back and underground, and the frontage keeps the sidewalk continuous instead of interrupting it with the mouth of a garage. The centre had to behave like a piece of street, because the street was already the attraction. This is the commercial payoff of the whole arrangement: the median exhibition and the galleries persuade people to walk a mile of sidewalk in a climate that does not obviously invite it, and the rents along here reflect the fact that they do.
Past here the frontages narrow again.