The Neiman Marcus store on Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis will be closing, photographed Monday , July 23, 2012. ( Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)
We’re announcing with some sadness the July 2013 closing of the 118,000 sq ft Neiman Marcus store in Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota,. This comes after the closing of the full-line Saks Fifth Avenue store in Downtown Minneapolis in January 2005.
We have a soft spot for Downtown Minneapolis. During our formative years, Minneapolis sparkled with such great department stores as Dayton’s, Donaldson’s and later Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. We got some of our first tastes of glamour strolling the Louis Vuitton, Oval Room luxury salon and Chanel boutiques at Dayton’s, the glamorous escalators of the multi-floor Saks, and the subdued elegance of Neimans.
After Neiman Marcus closes, all that will be left in Downtown Minneapolis is Macy’s in the former Dayton’s space. Sure it has Vuitton and The Oval Room, but it lacks the class and customer service of its former Dayton’s nameplate.
This is yet another sad decline not only in American retailing, but with American cities in general. All but a handful of American cities continue to maintain vibrant downtowns, and we wave goodbye to Minneapolis as it has now become just another American city with a downtown devoid of decent retailing.
We’ll remember our youth in Minneapolis, and continue visiting the more vibrant urban centres in Europe and Canada. Minneapolis, it was nice while it lasted…
Exterior of Neiman Marcus, Minneapolis (Pioneer Press: Scott Takushi)
A shopper looks over a shoe display as others walk past in the women's shoe department of the downtown Seattle Nordstrom store, Wednesday, May 17, 2006. Nordstrom Inc. releases first-quarter earnings. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Retail Insider was just informed that Nordstrom has secured leases for 4 Canadian stores. These locations will include:
1. Pacific Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia – ~225,000 square feet
2. Chinook Centre in Calgary, Alberta – ~140,000 square feet
3. Rideau Centre in Ottawa, Ontario – ~150,000 square feet and
4. Sherway Gardens in Toronto, Ontario – ~140,000 square feet.
The first three locations are currently occupied by Sears stores, while the Sherway Gardens store will be a new-build Nordstrom location, corresponding with an expansion of the shopping centre. The 225,000 sq ft Sears store at Sherway will continue to operate. Nordstrom’s board of directors is expected to approve these leases by early next week, while a formal announcement could take up to two months.
Negotiations are still underway for Nordstrom to occupy part of the current Sears store at the Toronto Eaton Centre. Talks are also underway for Nordstrom to take over the current Sears location at Toronto’s Yorkdale Shopping Centre. A previous attempt at building a 165,000 sq ft Nordstrom at the East side of Yorkdale fell through, so talks to take Yorkdale’s Sears is still proposed. Yorkdale’s Sears store is 190,000 square feet.
Given the size of these locations, it is expected that at least the Vancouver store will include such amenities as restaurants, spas, and the luxury women’s department called ‘Collectors’ (carrying such designers as Valentino, Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Prada, Lanvin, Missoni, etc). The new Sherway Gardens store is expected to include a smaller Collector’s department, which will compete directly with a future-expanded Holt Renfrew store in the same mall.
At press time, Bloomingdale’s is still negotiating with The Hudson’s Bay Company to open concessions within several Bay stores, including a full-line Bloomingdale’s store at 44 Bloor Street East in Toronto, Ontario.
Today a reader provided us with an interesting and slightly disturbing link to the new ‘Macy’s Brand’ shopping bags being marketed on their website. These are plastic versions of shopping bags from now-closed American department stores, all of which have since been converted to Macy’s nameplates and/or closed by Macy’s. The one that pulled at our heartstrings was the bag by Marshall Field’s, Chicago’s once great super-retailer.
Former Marshall Field’s store in Chicago, now ‘Macy’s State Street’
Marshall Field’s was a Chicago institution. It had excellent customer service and interesting, upscale products, all located in beautifully interesting retail settings. Its enormous State Street Flagship store was a Chicago institution. In 2006, After Macy’s converted all Marshall Field’s stores to Macy’s nameplates, various upscale labels jumped ship. Macy’s-exiting-labels included Prada, Miu Miu, Jimmy Choo, Dolce & Gabbana (clothing/accessories for women and men), Steuben, and others. Macy’s has continued to try to market its State Street store in an upscale way, to the dismay of many previous Field’s shoppers. This was even met with a resistance website, which can be viewed here: http://www.fieldsfanschicago.org
We don’t want to rant at length, but Macy’s obliterated much of the remaining varied department store chains in America. These included I. Magnin, Bullock’s, Meier & Frank, The Bon Marche, Lazarus, Filene’s, Jordan Marsh, Kaufmann’s, Hecht’s, Goldsmith’s, Robinson’s-May, Burdines, Rich’s, Foley’s, Hecht’s, Wanamaker, and others. And now you can buy their ‘shopping bags’ at Macy’s. Talk about reviving past trauma.
Don’t get us wrong, we applaud efforts Macy’s is making to be ‘America’s Department Store’. We just find it a shame that Macy’s felt it prudent to eliminate centuries of good will and customer loyalty for a Manhattan-based, mid-market department store. Various successful, profitable single-stores and small department store chains operate throughout the world (think Harrod’s in London, KaDeWe in Berlin, Oberpollinger in Munich, le Bon Marche in Paris, among others) and we think Macy’s could have left at least an I. Magin store in San Francisco, a Wanamaker in Philadelphia, or a Marshall Field’s in Chicago. Product-purchasing economies of scale can be met while a chain uses multiple nameplates, for example.
It’s still tempting to buy a $40 Field’s shopping bag for old-time sake. Partly to evoke memories of a store that once had decent customer service and a breadth of upscale product offerings.
By the way, this blog is awesome. It’s called ‘The Department Store Museum’, and it provides a wonderfully comprehensive database of store guides, photos, and descriptions and now defunct (and some still-operating) North American department stores: http://departmentstoremuseum.blogspot.ca. We’ve literally spent hours reading store descriptions and wonderful viewer comments (some of which are our own).
Artist Rendering of 30-60 Bloor St W., Courtesy Morguard Investments Ltd.
Today we were reviewing plans for an expanded/renovated Holt Renfrew flagship store at 50 Bloor Street West in Toronto. Plans include eight (8) levels of Holt Renfrew retail totalling about 200,000-220,000 sq ft, plus four levels / 90,782 square feet for an unknown retailer or retailers (or for Holt Renfrew as well?) and several levels of offices, all under a substantial residential tower.
Holt Renfrew Tower Rendering, courtesy City of Toronto Planning Commission
We note store square footages set out at this link: http://www.toronto.ca/planning/pdf/50bloor_architectural-plans.pdf#page=2 and specifically note the size of the newly expanded Holt Renfrew store. From our calculations, the new store will be about 200,000-220,000 square feet. We’re basing this on the ‘project statistics’ on the page above, subtracted some basement non-Holt Renfrew retail, added about 2,000 sq ft of new Holt’s basement retail, and added about 3,800 square feet occupied by Holt Renfrew on the ground floor of the 60 Bloor Street West building.
We are unsure what will happen to the Holt Renfrew Personal Shopping Suites, awkwardly placed within the 60 Bloor office tower with elevator access from the main store. These add an extra few thousand square feet, if included (and from the plans we don’t see them or their dedicated elevator).
Of further interest is a new, four-level retail portion to the project, totalling almost 91,000 square feet of retail. We are unsure if this will belong to Holt Renfrew (making a ~290,000-310,000 sq ft store), or if the space will be for one or more larger retailers.
Finally, the project will include about 78,000 square feet of office space. Could this be the new corporate office headquarters for Holts? We will continue to keep you updated, especially since it’s starting to look very interesting.
Christian Louboutin will open a boutique in the Esquire Theater location on Oak Street, joined by other luxury retailers and an upscale steakhouse.
The entire project will be about 35,000 square feet, 23,000 square feet of that being the steakhouse. We’ll let you know what luxury retailers will fill the remaining 12,000 square feet. Retail Insiders tell us one of the tenants will be Buccelati.
Chicago’s Oak Street has seen an influx of new luxury retailers occupying the former Barney’s New York store at 25 E. Oak Street as well as the former Esquire Theatre. We will provide updates as they arise.
When renovations are complete, the Galeries Lafayette store in Strasbourg will include accessories shops for Gucci, Prada, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent. These will be in addition to other luxury offerings at Galeries Lafayette stores throughout France (see our post on new Gucci boutiques opening at several Galeries Lafayette locations)
The Printemps department store in Strasbourg is also undergoing a luxury transformation. Expect heated competition between Galeries Lafayette and Printemps in various French cities, as each vies for luxury shopping dollars.
We will keep you updated on further French department store updates. France’s two major chains are in the process of vigorous renovations.
A Toronto-based commercial real estate broker has confirmed that his/her company has been retained to investigate, locate and negotiate with Canadian landlords, including Sears Canada, for one or more potential Saks Fifth Avenue stores. Saks is also said to be ‘feeling out’ the market, recognizing the strength of homegrown Holt Renfrew and the possible entry of Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s (via The Hudson’s Bay Company) into the Canadian retail market.
Saks Fifth Avenue is searching for ‘ideal’ sized retail footprints, generally between 110,000 and 180,000 square feet. Nordstrom has been trying to locate similarly large retail spaces between 135,000 and 260,000 square feet.
This broker notes that Saks would ideally like locations in Toronto (Eaton Centre and/or Bloor Street and Yorkdale Shopping Centre), Chinook Centre in Calgary, and Pacific Centre in Vancouver, BC. We had initially reported that Nordstrom had been in negotiation for these Sears locations. Saks’ interest could mean the delay or elimination of Nordstrom’s efforts to move into Canada.
We’ll keep you updated on this speculative and potentially exciting development.
At the Global Department Store Summit in Paris last week, London’s Selfridge’s was named the world’s best department store for a second year.
Selfridge’s has made strides over the past few years to create a spectacular shopping experience. It opened a luxury accessories hall called ‘The Wonder Room’, it created the world’s largest women’s shoe store (for now), and just unveiled its new women’s designer floor.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Check out these pics of the interior of Selfridge’s, London.
Those familiar with French label Zadig & Voltaire will be excited to know that it has just announces major international expansion plans. It currently has locations in Manhattan and will soon be opening in Chicago and Aspen, CO.
Expansion plans also include Brazil, Australia and South Africa.
We’ll let you know locations when they’re announced! Stay tuned.
Lord & Taylor just announced that it will re-enter the Florida market with an 80,000 square foot store in Boca Raton at Mizner Park. The store will open September 2013 and will anchor the upscale outdoor shopping center that includes such luxury retailers as Jaeger-Le Coultre and Van Cleef & Arpels.
Lord & Talor has been in expansion mode lately, owned by Canadian-based Hudson’s Bay Company. Company president Bonnie Brooks states “Everyone at Lord & Taylor is thrilled to be re-entering the Florida market with a full-line store”.
Lord & Taylor once had several Florida locations, all of which closed in 2006 during rougher retail times for the company. Fortunes have since turned for the better at Lord & Taylor, led partly due to the obliteration of various American department stores by Macy’s Inc.. Once Macy’s shuttered the Marshall Field’s chain, for example, sales at Lord & Taylor stores in Chicagoland soared.
Lord & Taylor Flagship in Manhattan
Watch for Lord & Taylor to break into the world of high-fashion, including such designers as Balmain and Erdem. Changes are already underway at the Manhattan flagship store, including the addition of Herve Leger women’s clothing, among other designers.
