The Malls of Asian America

Milpitas Square cashes in on a growing clientele

Photos by Jason Doiy

Milpitas Square developer Philip Su says his concept "is a one-stop destination for Bay Area Asians to eat and shop."

BY NINA WU AND BERT ELJERA

Water spouts from the mouths of five fish in a circular rock fountain at Milpitas Square Plaza; the largest one leaps from the center as the other four dance around it. The fish are symbolic of prosperity, the water symbolic of wealth.

It seems as if wealth and prosperity have indeed come to this new shopping center, worth $35 million and still growing. The center is one example of an emerging trend in the South Bay--Asian-themed shopping plazas that serve a growing, middle-class Asian Pacific American community.

"I wholeheartedly welcomed it," said Milpitas Mayor Henry Manayan. "I saw that it was something we needed, and it was the right decision to make."

Statistics from the 1990 census indicate that a new population of Asian Pacific Americans--recent immigrants and second- and third-generation--have growing economic clout. More than 2.5 million people of Asian descent live and work in the South Bay. Of those, the average income per household ranges from $36,000 to $64,000.

Merchants are noticing this trend--and are offering more choices. Customers still flock to urban shopping neighborhoods like San Francisco Chinatown, but many are finding suburban plazas, like Milpitas Square, more accessible.

Milpitas Square Plaza, built last September, inhabits a site the size of five football fields near the intersection of Highway 237 and Interstate 880. Shops are housed in a U-shaped line of beige-and-peach, one-story buildings visible from the highway.

Most customers visit the center for its 20 or so restaurants, which offer an array of Asian cuisines, from dim sum to local Taiwanese, Japanese, Filipino, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants.

"The concept is a one-stop destination for Bay Area Asians to eat and shop," said Milpitas Square developer Philip Su, who is also president of Top Line Properties. "The parking is accessible, it's safe and there are a variety of shops that provide more choices."

The mall houses jewelry stores, beauty parlors, electronic equipment shops, bakeries, an acupuncture clinic, a dentist's office, and even an imported-cigar shop. A chain supermarket, 99 Ranch Market, anchors the center.

Photos by Jason Doiy

San Francisco resident Richard Fung browses through name-brand jackets at Atelier Boutique.

The plaza draws shoppers from several Asian cultures. Fremont resident Rao Kondamoori, who is of East Indian descent, regularly drives 15 miles with his wife and daughter just to shop at 99 Ranch Market, where you can get cereal, orange juice and milk, as well as roasted ducks and Asian-style honeycake rolls.

Looking over the live blue crabs crawling in the tubs at the supermarket's fresh seafood section, Kondamoori comments: "I prefer this to the local supermarket. There's a lot more variety, and the prices are better."

Taiwanese immigrant Roger Chen, who owns the market, said he and a few friends conceived the idea when they were graduate students homesick for foods from home. What started as a small grocery store in Orange County now has grown into a chain with 11 full-service stores in California (the newest in Richmond), staffed by more than 1,000 employees. The company has an annual sales volume of more than $100 million and plans to expand into Seattle.

Like the supermarket, the Double Rainbow ice cream shop next door maintains a distinctive flavor.

Owned by Singaporean immigrant Elvina Lim, the store offers an eclectic range of items: buckets of ice cream behind the front counter, bins of dried fruit, roasted chestnuts, chicken jerky and dried cuttlefish at the back and side counters.

"It kind of works very well in the sense that ice cream is a summer thing," she said "Jerky and dried fruits are good for the winter, and they're kind of like gifts you can pack up."

Not surprisingly, the mall's developer himself comes from a fusion of cultures. At age 10, Su immigrated from Taiwan with his mother, two older sisters and a younger brother. His father remained in Taiwan to work, flying back and forth between the two continents to join his family.

"As I was growing up," he said, "I didn't feel that I was all Taiwanese or all American. I found that you're between two cultures."

Su's interest in business began at a very young age. His father owns Maritime Transportation, an international shipping firm based in Taiwan. He taught his son all there is to know about business.

"I think the Asian way of doing business is different from the American way," he said. "In the American way, you have a strict structure in the company. But in the Asian way, a lot of it is very family-oriented."

Family banking connections gave Su a step up in developing Milpitas Square. "We already had great relationships with all the different banks," he said.

Photos by Jason Doiy

San Francisco Chinatown is still bustling--and merchants say they haven't lost their core customers despite the new competition and the loss of the Embarcadero Freeway nine years ago.

Su, 32, said he believes that many Asian Americans of his generation do not feel as comfortable shopping in Chinatown as their grandparents. Waving a hand toward the center, Su pointed out that the shopping center is clean, with plenty of parking. "Shopping here is very different. We give a sense of security, particularly parking security," he said. "People find it more attractive."

But Pius Lee, co-chair of the Chinatown Economic Development group, says the area has regained its economic health since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake shut down the Embarcadero Freeway.

"A majority of Asians still go to Chinatown," said Lee, who also heads the Stockton Street Merchants Association. "I don't worry about shopping centers in Milpitas, San Jose or Concord."

Lee said Chinatown remains an emotional and cultural center for Chinese Americans. "They come out to visit friends and relatives. ... No matter how far they live, they still come to Chinatown from time to time."

Still, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has been discussing ways of bringing in more business--mostly from tourists. One idea: setting up stops for tour buses to pick up and drop off passengers. Already at Portsmouth Square, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Chinatown Economic Development Group hold weekly cultural shows geared toward visitors.

Albert Chang, owner of the Eastern Sea kite shop on Grant Street, said Chinatown lost Asian Americans who live and work outside the city long ago. And the numbers in the suburbs are growing.

The expansive parking lot at Milpitas Square is jam-packed on weekends by Asian families who come from as far as 30 miles away just to eat and shop at the plaza.

"If there was a bus, we would come here every day," said Chan C. Ren, an elderly Asian man seated on a bench at the plaza.

At noon on weekdays, the plaza draws a more diverse and business-oriented crowd from nearby technical companies such as Quantum Corp., LSI Logic Corp., Sybase and Sun Microsystems. This was what Su had in mind when he chose the Milpitas location.

Su, in fact, prefers to call the square a "specialty" shopping center rather than an "Asian" shopping center. "This is a mixing pot, and I hate to be labeled as just Asian," he said. "What we're bringing is very unique. It's very international and not restricted to just Asians."

The consumption is cross-cultural. The Atelier clothes boutique at the far right end of the plaza, for example, carries European brand names such as Gianni Versace, Giorgio Armani, Dolce and Salvatore Ferragamo, all with the Asian customer in mind.

"In general, Asian people are very trendy and fashionable, and they like quality," said sales representative Celine Tsan. "Also, the European fit tends to suit Asians better because the cut is for a slimmer body." There, customers may pay anywhere from $155 to $400 for a pair of Versace jeans.

When asked how much the shopping plaza has brought in profits, Su declined to give the figures, preferring instead to say, "It's doing quite well, and I'm very happy with the success." Since the grand opening, the center has rented out all its space at $2.30 to $2.60 per square foot.

"Our timing couldn't have been better," Su said. "It was just when the Silicon Valley was coming out of recession." Top Line Properties began construction in September 1995, completed the plaza in July 1996, and held its grand opening four months later. "We were really on a fast-track schedule," Su said.

Though the largest of its kind, Milpitas Square has plenty of company. In Daly City, Filipino immigrants played a key role in renovating the aging St. Francis Square mall, turning it into a bustling center with a big supermarket and upscale restaurants.

And just 15 minutes north in Fremont, an Asian-themed shopping plaza called Little Taipei Square will open soon.

Like Milpitas Square, it is a suburban, strip-style plaza with a dozen or so pan-Asian restaurants, shops, and bakeries. The developer of this plaza--also from Taiwan--is listed as the Great China Investment Realty Corp.

Peter Luo, a Chinese immigrant who serves as manager of Me We Vegetarian, said he would rather work at the plaza than at a restaurant in San Francisco Chinatown.

"Chinatown is already so crowded , and the competition is getting too strong," Luo said. "In this area, it's not just Asian people, but local American people. There are Indians, Filipinos, and many different kinds of people around here."

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