New owners plan to bring ‘a breath of new life’ to Del Mar Plaza

By: Sebastian Montes

April 26, 2017 | Del Mar Times

 

As Patricia Brutten peers out from the terrace atop the Del Mar Plaza, the afternoon sun carving its arc down through the panoramic Pacific views, she can’t help but lament the near emptiness engulfing her, a quietude barely bothered by the slow trickle of arrivals to Il Fornaio for a Friday happy hour.

 

The scene is stark in its contrast to the bustling days she recalls after the plaza’s opening in 1989, when the three-level center was the heart of commerce along Camino Del Mar, a short walk for Brutten and her neighbors to meet all of their shopping needs.

 

Now, three years after moving back to Del Mar, she and her developer husband Marc are taking on the task of restoring the plaza to its former grandeur. Brixton Capital, the holding company they head, bought the plaza in February for an undisclosed sum, putting the property under local ownership for the first time in nearly 20 years. And there, on the 15,000-square-foot terrace, the plaza’s vast potential is to Brutten is at its most obvious — but so too is the long road ahead to undo years of neglect suffered under a string of absentee owners, all while fighting against the tide in a retail environment far less hospitable than the plaza’s creators could possibly have imagined.

 

Link to full article HERE.