By Jason Islas
Lookout Staff

August 9, 2011 – Citing the departure of businesses near Wilshire Boulevard on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, City Councilmembers Bob Holbrook and Terry O’Day will ask staff Tuesday to write up an ordinance that will allow auto retail in the area.

“There's a large space becoming available at the north end of the Promenade,” Holbrook told The Lookout Monday.

Tesla Motors is eager to lease the property, but according to Chapter 9 of the Santa Monica Municipal Code, they can't, said Holbrook.

Though auto retail is not specifically prohibited by Chapter 9 from setting up shop in the Bayside District 1 – which includes the Promenade – there is a provision that excludes “any use not specifically authorized.”

At the moment, auto retail is not included in the uses permitted in Bayside District 1.

But Holbrook pointed out that the scope of Tesla's business downtown would be limited to selling and showing new cars.

“We want to keep it fairly narrow,” O'Day told The Lookout, adding there will be “no inventory or repair.” They would also limit the size of the retail space and allow only the sale of alternative fuel vehicles, which Tesla Motors sells exclusively.

Both O'Day and Holbrook think that Tesla's alternative fuel vehicles are a good fit in Santa Monica.

There are already a couple of alternative fuel vehicle companies that do business in Santa Monica, but none are on the Promenade.

“We don't have anything on our premier sales block, where you reach the whole world,” said O'Day. He thought that allowing a company like Tesla access to the prime sales location would help bring attention to electric cars.

It just doesn't make sense to send Santa Monicans to West Los Angeles – the location of the nearest Tesla store – if they want to buy an electric vehicle, said O’Day.

“If someone were to buy a $30,000 car, we'd want that sale to happen within Santa Monica city limits,” he said. It would keep trips down and support the buy-local movement that has grown popular in recent years.

Tesla's store in San Jose's Santana Row – a similarly pedestrian-friendly shopping center – could possibly serve as a model for the retail space on the Promenade, O'Day said.

Holbrook said that an auto retailer in a major shopping area is not all that uncommon. The idea first occurred to him, he said, while watching the The Blues Brothers. A scene in which the two main characters are driving a car through a major shopping center features an auto retailer.

The sight of an auto retailer in a shopping center caused Holbrook to wonder if this was a work of fiction or if this was a common practice.

After looking into the issue, he found that, in fact, modest showrooms in shopping centers are not at all uncommon.

Holbrook hopes that the matter will be concluded by the end of this year.