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The border crossing where California's I-5 meets Tijuana, Mexico, is well known as one of the busiest junctures in the world On one side, thousands of tourists stream in daily from the United States, looking for bargains and perhaps a bit of decadence in a ramshackle downtown.
On the other side, Mexicans wait in mile-long traffic jams to cross into the richest industrialized nation in the world, where opportunities for work, education and shopping far exceed what they can expect in their own third world-like city.
Most U.S. tourists are unaware that they are in the third largest city in Mexico--a city of 1.4 million people--and that beyond the rickety downtown there are modern office buildings, manufacturing plants, museums, theaters and stores.
Indeed, Tijuana is considered an economic powerhouse by Mexican standards, although by U.S. standards it could be thought of only as a city beset by poverty.
Mexicans of means, even relatively modest means, are not oblivious to this disparity. So when they go shopping, they are attracted to the same pretty malls of the San Diego area--such as Horton Plaza and University Towne Center--that San Diegans like to shop.
The main challenge for Dorian's, the largest department store chain in Mexico's Baja California--with 24 stores and a 1991 volume of about $130 million--has always been to stem that tide of border crossings and convince more Mexicans to do their shopping locally.
In recent years, Dorian's has stepped up those efforts by building stores that rival U.S. department stores in terms of design beauty. The efforts are apparently working: Dorian's Cachanilla store, built in 1989, won top honors in Chain Store Age Executive's New Store of the Year competition in the international category last year. Walker Group/CNI, New York, was the design firm used by Dorian's.
Have the...