Let’s say you find yourself at the Village at Corte Madera, that fine, upscale shopping palace ensconced not far from the bay and nestled by Highway 101. You decide you’re in need of a visit to the mall concierge to do whatever it is one does in that place, when you see it: the Tesla store.
That’s right; the luxury electric sports car maker has a store at Marin’s finest shopping destination, just a few feet from Nordstrom. The store isn’t as big as a one-car garage, but Tesla, headed up by Elon Musk, creator of PayPal, CEO of SpaceX and primary shareholder of SolarCity, has embraced Marin the way the media snuggles the Kardashians.
In August 2012, Tesla opened a service center in San Rafael on DuBois Street, the first center outside the company headquarters in Palo Alto. And now the Corte Madera store is only the second mall retail location after the flagship at Santana Row, in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Tesla has hit the jackpot in Marin. Perhaps in no other place in the country will you find the maxed-out combination of environmentalism, love of technology and conspicuous consumption. The tiny showroom is large enough for a wall of finishes, showing various options available for the $71,000 Model S. It also has a large computer monitor, which lets shoppers design their own car. And if they’re so moved, there’s a Model S standing by, fully charged, waiting for a test drive.
Brian Jardine, a senior owner/adviser for Tesla, says the new “showroom” has been very well received. When I suggest that Marin is the ideal location for Tesla, Jardine simply smiles and nods his head.
Tesla has had some tough ink. A trio of car fires involving the Model S has put the company on the defensive. Musk took to Twitter to blast the media for its coverage, “Why does a Tesla fire with no injury get more media headlines than 100,000 gas car fires that kill 100s of people per year?”
If your stock was trading at $142 per share, you might be defensive, too.
And an Esquire magazine interview with actor George Clooney only made matters worse: “ I had a Tesla; I was one of the first cats with a Tesla. I think I was, like, No. 5 on the list. But I’m telling you, I’ve been on the side of the road a while in that thing, and I said to them, ‘Look, guys, why am I always stuck on the side of the f*cking road? Make it work, one way or another.’”
Clooney reportedly auctioned off his Roadster for $99,000 for charity, and Tesla no longer makes the Roadster.
Bum publicity or not, Jardine says Marin has responded well to the new store. “We’ll be moving into a much bigger location here in the mall in 2014.”
Your Marin moment
George Lucas has long been the biggest dog in Marin, and I mean that in the best kind of way. He built companies and a business empire that called Marin home and provided hundreds of jobs. He sold Lucasfilm for $4 billion to Disney in an eye-popping deal that caught everyone by surprise.
And then he got married.
But lately, George has found the universe a less hospitable place. The Marin County Supervisors caved to a small group of vocal neighbors who didn’t care for Lucas’ Grady Ranch project, and the big man himself decided he’d had enough and pulled the plug. Now he plans to build affordable housing on the Grady property, and though the Marin Community Foundation walked away from the project, you can make book that the workforce housing will be built, even if Lucas himself winds up fronting some of the development cash.
And when the project moves forward, the sound emanating from Lucas Valley will be loud indeed, and it won’t have much to do with construction.
The latest setback for Lucas is the ice-cold reception his proposal for the “Lucas Cultural Arts Museum” in the Presidio in San Francisco received from the Presidio Trust Board. To be completely fair, the board wasn’t a fan of any of the trio of proposals it received. Lucas would like to build a 65-foot-high, 93,000-square-foot Beaux Arts-style building that would contain an extensive art collection including original Norman Rockwells as well as props and memorabilia from Lucas’ portfolio of films. And Lucas, never one to shy from donating to the community, has pledged to spend $700 million of his own cash on the project.
The Trust said the building was too big and was an “inappropriate configuration.” The rejection of the design and the board’s call for a do-over fell a little flat with Lucas. In a Sept. 2013 story in the New York Times, Lucas complained that the board “made us jump through hoops to explain why a museum was worth having. I thought a museum was a concept that people already bought into about 200 years ago. They’re having us do as much work as we can, hoping that we’ll give up. They hate us.”
The National Park Service has also chimed in on the Lucas project and, in a December 2013 letter to the board, suggested delaying a decision for several years to give the eight-acre property a chance “to develop in a more comprehensive, thoughtful, integrated and planned manner.”
Lucas made it known that, should the board fail to sign off on his project, he’ll take his museum to Chicago.
The Lucas project has plenty of high-profile supporters, including San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, investor Ron Conway and film luminaire Martin Scorsese.
At this writing a few days before Christmas, the board expects new plans submitted by Jan. 3, and the Lucas team vows to have its proposal submitted.
Until then, the site remains a Sports Basement store.
