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Mall mania hits
Richmond
by Paula C.
Squires
October 2003
It
felt like Christmas last month in Richmond, which celebrated
its biggest retail event in decades, opening not one,
but two new regional malls. The opening of Short Pump
Town Center in Henrico County and Stony Point Fashion
Park in Richmond — the only new malls scheduled
to open in the country in 2003 — brought out droves
of curious shoppers who jockeyed to find a parking place
in crowded lots. Both malls are open-air pedestrian
centers with fountains, statuary and high-end stores
new to the Richmond market, including a Nordstrom and
Saks Fifth Avenue, which are expected to restore Richmond’s
reputation as a shopping destination.
So
eager were area shoppers to glimpse the new stores that
tickets sold out to a pre-opening gala sponsored by
Nordstrom at Short Pump Town Center. Held the evening
before the mall’s opening, about 1,500 people paid
$75 a ticket — with proceeds going to area charities
— to sip champagne, munch lavish hors d’oeuvres
and browse Nordstrom’s aisles, which were decorated
with vases of purple tulips and candle votives. “This
is fabulous,” crooned shoppers as they fingered
$500 Dana Buckman coats and listened to a jazz combo.
On
hand for the opening party was Nordstrom President Blake
Nordstrom, who traveled from the store’s headquarters
in Seattle. Blake, whose great-grandfather founded the
146-store Nordstrom chain with a single shoe store in
1901, camped out in the shoe department, greeting shoppers
and terming the gala a success. “It’s one
of the better ones in terms of being sold out,”
he says. Store executives were also encouraged, he adds,
by the 1,600 people who applied for 200 jobs at the
store. The $360 million Short Pump Town Center adds
1.2 million square feet of retail space to Richmond’s
high-growth Broad Street corridor. When all stores and
restaurants open, including a Lord & Taylor next
year, the center is expected to create 4,000 jobs and
generate $10.4 million a year in tax revenues.
Rival
Stony Point Fashion Park opened despite the impending
arrival of Hurricane Isabel. Winds and rainy weather
canceled some festivities, and the mall closed early
on its first day. Still, plenty of shoppers came out
to visit Sak’s and the mall’s other anchors
— Galyan’s, a sporting goods store, and Dillard’s.
When totally built out, the $115 million, 690,000-square-foot
mall will employ 2,000 workers and generate $4 million
a year in additional tax monies.
Now
that both malls — located just miles apart —
are open, people wonder if the Richmond market can support
so many new stores. Blake Nordstrom doesn’t seem
worried. “The customer will decide who succeeds
and who doesn’t.”
Virginia
Business - October 2003
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