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By Patricia Morris Buckley
Few things intrigue a business person more than an unfilled niche in the market. After a few years of observing one such need downtown, Katherine Stuart decided to do something about it. In June, she opened Spa Tiki, a two- story day spa at the base of the Harbor Club condominium tower. “People kept asking why there was no spa Downtown,” recalls Stuart, a Downtown resident and long-time member of the Gaslamp Quarter Association board. “New residents didn’t want to drive all the way up to La Jolla.”
With residents fitting
profitably into her plans to serve conventioneers
and the business community, Stuart is just one of
many independent retailers seeing the potential in
the growing Downtown market as more and more people
move to this urban neighborhood.
This arrival of
new residents, people with significant disposable
income, is proving to be a catalyst for altering
the restaurant- laden layout of the Downtown landscape. “For the first time, there are more retailers that restaurants in the Gaslamp Quarter,” says Stuart, who also is the owner of Restaurant Events, a company that hooks up conventioneers with restaurants.
How different from
just a few years ago when residents had to do the
bulk of their shopping outside Downtown. “I can remember literally doing a dance of joy when Ralph’s moved down here,” says Stuart. “And now, we have just about everything we need.”
Before opening Spa
Tiki with partner Jerry Dressel, Stuart extensively
researched her potential customer base. Her conclusion
was a spa would need to serve both residents and
tourists can retreat to private rooms. “I wanted to capture the convention market and cater to locals, but not mix the two,” she says. “My research showed that 25 percent of business would be from the 92101 area, 25 percent from out of town and the rest from other parts of San Diego.”
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