COMMONS CENTER GOES FOR THE UPSCALE.

Byline: Enrique Rivero Daily News Staff Writer

Developer Rick Caruso wound his way through dozens of construction workers and sidestepped several gaping ditches to get close to his newest creation.

He has just explained that the earth-toned exteriors of The Commons at Calabasas - an upscale, 200,000-square-foot shopping center slated to open Thursday - are covered in a special lime plaster, which was invented in France to repair old buildings, that becomes as hard as stone.

``Knock on that,'' he says, giving a white arch around a doorway a couple of solid raps. ``Isn't that amazing?''

The wall is, indeed, knuckle-shattering hard. An even greater source of pride for Caruso are walkways of hand-chipped granite cobblestones - all 250,000 of them tumbled to give them a rounded, worn-down look to better re-create the center's Tuscan village atmosphere.

``You don't see that kind of labor anymore - it's a lost art,'' he said.

The Commons is the latest shopping center developed by Caruso's Santa Monica-based Caruso Affiliated Holdings. It will open just two years after his The Promenade at Westlake debuted to great acclaim from both the public and hard-to-please, slow-growth proponents in Thousand Oaks.

Other Caruso projects in the area are The Village at Moorpark, which is also in Thousand Oaks on Moorpark Road; and the Encino Marketplace on Ventura Boulevard in, appropriately enough, Encino.

In addition, he is about to begin construction on a 600,000-square-foot retail center in the Fairfax district. He already has a site near the Beverly Center.

At a cost of $40 million, the Commons stretches a half-mile from end to end on a 22-acre parcel along Calabasas Road in the Park Centre, the new city center that is slated to include a hotel, corporate offices and a municipal offices.

Among the center's 35 businesses and eateries are a Barnes & Noble bookstore, a six-screen multiplex, and a Ralphs supermarket.

The Commons also includes two lakes, seven bronze sculptures commissioned for the center, 18th century limestone sculptures from France that depict the four seasons, and plenty of outdoor seating.

The goal of all this, Caruso said, is to create a place where visitors will spend an afternoon or evening. ``We want to create a lingering, strolling, much more reflective environment,'' he said.