Can Rick Caruso’s Grove Live Happily Ever After?

David L. Ulin’s oh-so-happy love letter to Rick Caruso was as sickening as a half-day at the Grove (“A Man of the Street,” June 3). Or an hour. Developments like the Grove rip what authenticity L.A. has out of its sunny heart. Ulin is clearly downing ample swigs of Caruso’s Kool-Aid.

Give me more tree-lined streets that are friendly to bicycles and pedestrians, no walled theme malls with massive parking tombs. That the Grove is so successful makes it even more hideous, prompting me to question Angelenos’ taste.

R. Daniel Foster

Los Feliz

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The Grove is tacky, phony and fake, full of monuments to vapid consumerism. Did we really need more chain stores? It is more like Disneyland than a real place.

L.A. does need places where people can get out of their isolating cars and interact with other people. But the plastic Grove doesn’t do it for me.

Roger Angle

Culver City

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As a managing partner of one of the most active retail development teams in north L.A. County, I am glad to see Caruso get the acclaim for being the innovator he is. The supreme compliment comes when a person’s name works its way into the vernacular. The process of building a shopping center always starts with meetings between the developer, civic leaders, homeowners’ associations and municipal authorities to solicit input about the type of development they would like and tenants they want in the neighborhood.

Invariably, they reply, “We would like to see a Caruso center.” The implication is that a Caruso center brings synergy and panache to a community. Everything Ulin referred to in his article and more. Caruso has set the bar high, and that is a very good thing for all concerned.

Bert Abel

Executive Vice President

NAI Capital

Santa Clarita