upscale

Shaul Kuba, co-founder of CIM Group, said he expects being situated on the edge of the upscale Sycamore district will help the apartment building land tenants.

The building is close to other amenities including restaurants, an upscale athletic club, hotels and stores.

He found he had a certain kind of customer—someone from Long Island or Jersey, a little more upscale than the working-class tourists his dad used to sell to, a little more downscale than his wife’s real-estate friends in Miami—who loved the most outrageous T-shirts he could print.

And then came the rise of Erewhon, an upscale health food market that derives its name from the anagramic spelling of the word nowhere.

Today a private equity firm — the Stripes Group — owns a minority stake, and the chain is expanding to every upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles.