A Tokyo-based virtual reality company will add a new dimension to the Third Street Promenade.
Tyffonium plans to open its first American location at 1444 Third Street Promenade. At the company’s Tokyo locations, customers can either navigate a ship through a fantasy world or explore a haunted manor. The locations also include cafes that double as waiting rooms.
The Daily Press has not yet been able to reach the company for more information on what its Santa Monica location would offer.
Tyffonium will be the Third Street Promenade’s second virtual reality experience. The Void opened a few blocks north late last year, offering VR attractions based on “Star Wars” and “Ralph Breaks the Internet” for around $35.
The two-story white building between Urban Outfitters and Pacsun that Tyffonium plans to move into previously housed a pizzeria but has stood vacant for about four years. It was built in 1992.
The company plans to transform the facade into something that resembles a fantasy castle, with gray fluted zinc paneling, a purple brick wall and bronze windows and columns. The Santa Monica Architectural Review Board will consider the project on Monday.
City planner Russell Bunim wrote in a report on the project that the architectural design of the store seeks to embody the spirit of the Tyffonium experience and fit into the urban and pedestrian fabric of the Promenade.
“Tyffonium ‘transports’ people to new worlds. As a result, the architecture of the building seeks to create a portal, transition and dialogue between the pedestrian life on the Promenade and the experience within the building,” Bunim wrote.
Bunim recommended that the board approve the design, writing that the proposed facade materials are high quality and carefully detailed.
The building will bear two signs with Tyffonium’s seven-pointed star logo, one above the entrance and the other projecting from the facade. The first sign is 17.3 square feet and the second is 4.5 square feet.
Tyffonium has proposed projecting a light image on the purple brick wall leading to the entrance, which would become more visible at night, Bunim wrote.
“A condition has been added to ensure this light image projection does not become signage by advertising or calling attention to the type of business or products within the building and that all light from the projection … (does not spill) out into the public right-of-way on the Third Street Promenade,” Bunim wrote.
The Architectural Review Board will meet at 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 1685 Main St.
madeleine@smdp.com
