baby steps at horton plaza

westfield has announced some planned changes to horton plaza downtown, and while it's great news to hear that the long-overdue makeover of this fortress-like mall is on the drawing board, there's not much on that board yet. the image above, showing changes to the building that faces the park fronting broadway, is about all they've shown (more images available on skyscraper page), with street-facing businesses planned. it's an improvement for sure, but there's nothing remarkable about it as currently shown.

removal of the endless ramps in the mall's interior is also slated to happen, but not anytime soon. at least they're polling customers on what they want, which apparently includes more restaurants and electronics stores - how about an apple store?



meanwhile, four new restaurants are coming to east village, helping to fill all that empty retail space in the new condo buildings around petco. el vitral (mexican cuisine, tequila lounge) goes into the schiefer building pictured here - that will really liven up j street in front of the park at petco. wine steals opens its fourth location in the kvass/legend building on 7th, while diamondview gets two new restaurants, acqua e terra (from the owners of acqua al 2 in the gaslamp) and banc, mediterranean-style cuisine. these join tilted kilt and wings pizza n things as new petco-area options.