Page 128 - enLIGHTenment Magazine - January 2017

Retail Spotlight

Needing assistance with the back o ce duties,
Jackson turned to someone with decades of rel-

evant experience whom he trusted implicitly: his
mother, Sandi Ray. “She keeps us in line,” he jokes.

Coming in two days a week by choice, Sandi Ray is
proud of what her son has accomplished and is all

too willing to help.

When the Recession began brewing in Decem-
ber 2007, Urban Lighting was more prepared than

most. Jackson’s husband – whose background is in
real estate management – accurately predicted

that the boom would not hold. “We began scaling

back on our hours and buying,” Jackson explains.
As a result, “for 2015 and 2016, [our numbers]

were up over the previous years.”
Located in the city’s historic Gaslamp Quarter

and within walking distance of the San Diego

Convention Center, which a racts thousands of
vastly di erent industries including the notori-

ously eclectic Comi-Con International, Urban
Lighting draws people in. “We had someone from

Georgia walk in recently who noticed a design in

the window and said she had to have it,” Jackson
recounts. “We’ve also had customers from China

and Japan who are here on business.”
Clients are split between architects and design-

ers (60 percent) and residential customers (40

percent) as the merchandise mix re ects. “I want
to carry products from manufacturers who take

care of their showrooms,” Jackson states. Some
of the companies represented are local to Cali-

fornia (Cerno, Ultralights, Ron Rezek, and Pablo),

“I want to carry products

from manufacturers

who take care of their

showrooms.”

top: Celia Rivera has been with the
showroom for the past 14 years

and is uent in Spanish.

bottom: An electic mix of merchandise
from a life-size pig (holding a pla er of

apples on his head) to sculptural mirrored
wall stones greet customers as they walk up
the stairs to the second oor.

126 enLIGHTenment Magazine | january 2017
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