What is C3?

Since our inception in 1990, Pompei A.D. has been a leader in the development of transformational environments that merge Commerce, Culture, and Community (“C3^SM”). Through this integration we empower some of the world’s leading brands to connect with their audiences through experiences that forge emotionally-based relationships and speak to personal, social, and cultural values.

Brands exist within a broader cultural context, and their success is dependant on an engaged community of customers. The C3 approach starts with empathy for people, their values, and their aspirations. By gaining a deeper understanding of the community, and recognizing the broader cultural landscape of which the community is a part, brands can introduce new meaning and relevance to their offerings. This invigorated brand experience transforms customers from consumers into empowered co-authors.

What do we do?

C3 CENTERS

Pompei A.D. creates and manages commercial, retail and mixed use properties that transform shopping into vibrant, life-enriching experiences that are authentic and relevant to our customers. Each center will be the only one of its kind, catered to the area it serves—visually, culturally and socially. Visitors and carefully selected brand partners have an equal hand in co-creating the C3 experience to create a new kind of retail community. The effect of this approach will be to deepen customer loyalty, lengthen the duration of shopping visits, and broaden word-of-mouth promotion of these unique shopping centers.

Case Studies

The Lab

Orange County, California

As one of the presidents of the highly successful surfing brand Quicksilver, Shaheen Sadeghi is intimately familiar with the buying power of youth. Sadeghi saw an opportunity to create a destination in Southern California for 18 to 25 year olds that would cater to their social, commercial, and cultural needs. At that time, no other venue was tuned in to the psychographics of savvy young consumers. Sadeghi named his project The LAB, and commissioned Pompei A.D. because of the firm’s cultural insights and community based design strategy.

In 1993, The LAB, also known as the Anti-Mall, gathered seventeen specialty retailers on a 2.5 acre site with the goal of creating an environment where the 18-25 year olds of Orange County California would want to hang out.

Pompei A.D. understood that in order to appeal to their intended demographic, a very savvy niche market, the LAB needed to be more than just a visually exciting shopping mall. The success of The LAB was dependant on the creation of a transformational environment - merging commerce, culture and community. Conceptually, Pompei A.D. sought to create an environment reflective of the values, aesthetics, and attitudes of the intended customer. Every iconoclastic element affirms the lifestyle and sensibilities of their values.

The LAB consisted of three converted industrial buildings on the 2.5 acre site. Pompei A.D. designed The Lab’s image, interior, exterior, and common areas, as well as its anchor store Urban Outfitters. The design details included open-air lounging areas, a fountain of oxidized steel barrels, indigenous landscaping, a performance space and site-specific sculpture – all elements that affirm the lifestyle and sensibilities of the customer.

The LAB has been recognized for its innovation and business success in numerous publications around the world, including The New York Times and USA Today. As an international tourist destination, The Lab is widely recognized within the retail industry as a model for destinations that address specific sub-cultures.

As the first lifestyle center based on the values and psychographics of the consumer, it is a predecessor to more recent destinations such as Sony’s Metreon in San Francisco. Sony’s Metreon is a real estate development merging culture, commerce, community and entertainment for a specific psychographics that the developer brand is seeking to build a closer relationship with.

Due to the success of The LAB, developer Sadeghi was compelled to build a sister anti-mall, The Camp, appealing to the outdoor sports enthusiast niche market.

Space 15 Twenty

Hollywood, California

Pompei A.D. was commissioned by Urban Outfitters to develop a new concept for their brand that would integrate it with a collection of national and local retailers specifically relevant to the ever-evolving culture it supports. Pompei A.D. identified the new Cahuenga and Sunset district as the best location to appeal to the cutting-edge youthfully-minded marketplace and worked with Urban to assemble a collection of properties that insured a uniquely authentic presence in the fabric of the Hollywood community.

The 50,000-square-foot project houses ten carefully-selected retail tenants that offer the local community a curated, deeply focused collection of experiences, ranging from apparel and dining to holistic health and wellness. The roughly 10,000 square feet of public space become a home for an ongoing program of cultural events and activities, such as movie screenings, art fairs, and emerging clothing designer pop-ups, positioning the project as a relevant and engaged component of emerging youth culture in Hollywood.

Space 15 Twenty opened its doors in late 2008 to global acclaim and recognition. Urban Outfitters, along with tenants such as Alife, What Comes Around Goes Around, Steven Alan, We the Free, and Hennessey and Ingalls are realizing some of the highest footfall in the Hollywood area and are greatly benefitting from the media attention that this one-of-a- kind community-focused retail experience is generating.

Whizin Market Square

Agoura Hills, California

Located in the affluent Agoura Hills neighborhood north of Los Angeles, the 85,000-square-foot Whizin Market Square retail center was purchased as a repositionable retail asset by the Tucker Investment Group in 2006. Tucker engaged Pompei A.D. to develop a revitalized retail experience at the center that would provide a much needed community destination for Agoura Hills and subsequently allow Tucker to lure a new class of high-end retail tenants to the property.

To create a compelling destination, Pompei A.D. redesigned the site, the exterior, and the interior common areas of the facility to create an inviting “place to be.” Improvements included water features, Cafés and Gathering Spaces, Children’s Play Areas, Fabric Shade Screens, a Terraced Lawn, and new environmentally-relevant landscaping and exterior building treatments. To bring the new center to life and to create an ongoing engagement with the local community, Pompei A.D. developed a program of events and experiences that were relevant to the lives of visitors. This program included live music performances, open-air movie screenings, a weekly farmers market, nature discovery walks, and a series of annual cultural festivals.