102 replies to this topic

[Manolos]

This is HUGE for Scottsdale! I am so excited! There are only 6 or 7 Bottega Venetas in the country right now and for Phoenix/Scottsdale to get the next one is amazing! Same for Barneys. I have heard that Chanel and Ferregamo are close to making a deal as well.

Barneys, Bottega Veneta set for Scottsdale mall

Erica Sagon
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 11, 2006 01:38 PM

Luxury department store Barneys New York and high-end handbag retailer Bottega Veneta will join the lineup of stores at Scottsdale Fashion Square.

The stores will be the first in the state for both retailers.

Barneys plans a two-story, 65,000-square-foot flagship store for the east end of the mall at northwest corner of Scottsdale and Camelback roads, the mall's Phoenix-based manager and co-owner, Westcor, said Monday. The anchor will open in fall 2009 and partially replace the vacant Robinsons-May building that is slated to be torn down.
advertisement


Meanwhile, Bottega Veneta will make its entrance in Arizona with a 2,100-square-foot store in the Neiman-Marcus wing at Scottsdale Fashion Square. It will open on the first floor in spring 2008, Westcor said.

Both retailers are big names in fashion and huge coups for the Valley's luxury retail scene, which is growing thanks to affluent residents and tourists.

Westcor, the Valley's largest shopping mall developer, has been aggressively recruiting exclusive retailers to open at the already luxurious Scottsdale Fashion Square and Biltmore Fashion Park.

"Phoenix is one of those markets that has come into its own and for Barneys to have Scottsdale, Arizona, on its expansion list I think says it all," said David Scholl, senior vice president of development for Westcor.

And even more luxury stores are on the way. Barneys has triggered a redevelopment project on the east end of Scottsdale Fashion Square. Developers intend to knock down the empty Robinsons-May building and parking garage and build in its place a two-story extension that could house 25 to 30 additional retailers, some of which could be luxury tenants that are new to Arizona. Barneys will anchor the new wing.

At a retail industry convention in New York City last week, representatives from Barneys had openly discussed plans for a store at Scottsdale Fashion Square, according to those in attendance. Neither Barneys nor Westcor would confirm a deal until a letter of intent was signed, which happened Friday.

"We think there's an opportunity to have customers there," Dawn Brown, a Barneys spokeswoman, said Monday. "We have every intention of opening."

She declined to comment further, saying the deal is too far in the future.

Edited by Manolos, 12 December 2006 - 07:26 PM.

[Manolos]

Follow-Up Article

Barneys to dress up Valley
High-fashion retailer, Bottega Veneta handbags plan to open stores in Scottsdale Fashion Square

Erica Sagon
The Arizona Republic
Dec. 12, 2006 12:00 AM

For window shoppers and wealthy shoppers alike, the Valley is becoming a high-fashion hub that few other cities in the country can match.

On Monday, the announcement that two more upscale retailers, department store Barneys New York and handbag shop Bottega Veneta, will open their first stores in Arizona at Scottsdale Fashion Square bolstered the Valley's reputation as an elite shopping destination.

A majority of residents and tourists to the Valley might never be able buy things like a $2,500 cocktail dress at Barneys or a $5,600 tote from Bottega.
advertisement


But with a name like Barneys in the area, mall developers around the Valley hope to be able to attract additional upscale stores to their projects.

Barneys, which will open a 65,000-square-foot store in 2009, already has triggered plans for a new shopping wing on the east end of Scottsdale Fashion Square, said executives at Westcor, the Phoenix company that manages and partially owns the 2 million-square-foot mall at Scottsdale and Camelback roads.

Pending approval from city officials, Westcor intends to knock down the empty old Robinsons-May building and parking garage and build in its place a two-story extension that could house 25 to 30 additional retailers, some of which could be luxury tenants new to Arizona. Barneys would anchor the wing.

"Scottsdale Fashion Square is going to go from an 'A' mall to an 'A+' mall and will be considered among the elite centers in the country," said John Corritore, a Scottsdale-based broker who filled Kierland Commons, Scottsdale Waterfront and Tempe Marketplace with specialty retailers.

The mall's developers also are making room nearby for another department store, an upscale grocery store or several small retailers. Overall, up to 100,000 square feet could be added, with parking underground, Westcor executives said.

Westcor plans to eventually build condo, hotel and/or office towers directly north of the mall, on land now occupied by a Days Inn.

The mall is home to Burberry, Kate Spade, Juicy Couture and Gucci, plus anchors including Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.

Coach and Louis Vuitton are among the mall's higher-end retailers that expanded their stores recently to meet customer demand.

The mall's sales per square foot, a common way of measuring the health of a shopping center, are roughly $709, up 8.4 percent from $654 in 2005. That makes it one of the most successful malls in the state, if not the country.

Tracey Gotsis, senior vice president of development and marketing for Westcor, said Barneys is a coup for the Valley.

"It speaks volumes to where the market is today and where it's going tomorrow," she said. "There's so much more room for pure luxury in Arizona."

Westcor said it is wooing Hermès and Bloomingdale's, and that other ritzy retailers, including Chanel, Salvatore Ferragamo and Catherine Malandrino, would be a good fit for Scottsdale Fashion Square or Biltmore Fashion Park in Phoenix.

Such retailers typically open just a few stores a year, which makes it difficult to get them to commit to the Valley.

For example, New York-based Barneys has eight namesake department stores and 12 CO-OP stores, which are smaller with edgier fashions, across the country.

Dawn Brown, a spokeswoman for Barneys, said of the company's interest in Scottsdale, "We think there's an opportunity to have customers there. We have every intention of opening."

Bottega Veneta, which will open a store in the Neiman Marcus wing at Scottsdale Fashion Square, has about a dozen stores in the United States and several more abroad.

[MJLO]

Welcome Manalos,  it's good to see new posters in the forums
However please, do not quote entire news articles in posts. It's against forum rules. There are copyright issues.   You are however welcome and encouraged to provide links to news articles with partial quotes.  
Just sum them up with your own words and post the links.  If you have any questions or need help just send a shout my way.

[MJLO]

Perhaps I am showing my generic suburban side, but I really do like these exclusive chain.  I think it speaks well of the area you live in to have them.  Not that I don't like mom and pop stores, I just think a mix of the two serve a community better.  

What I'd like to see are these high end retailers runing up and down a boulevard or a street.  Having them all clustered in a mall gives it that classic Detroit feel.  Why hasn't scottsdale pioneered some kind of strip like that? Why are they all clustered in Fashion Square? Does it have something to do with the intense summer heat?   I think it just happened that way.

[Manolos]

Thanks for the welcome!

Im not sure what really started the whole Fashion Square thing. Most of the luxury stores at fashion square (Tiffanys, LV, Gucci, Max Mara) all started out at Biltmore Fashion Park (an outdoor mall), but then West cor transported them to SFS. And from there, most luxury stores like to stay near each other.

Westcor is really trying to make SFS more like South Coast in Orange County, NorthPark Center in Dallas and Galleria in Houston, all of which are huge mega-luxury centers.

I also really like the luxury stores. It says a lot about the city when they locate there. Bottega Veneta will start a huge influx of major luxury stores. Yea Gucci, LV, Tiffanys are luxury, but you need the more exclusive brands like Bottega and Barneys to really start the flow. I think within the next couple months, Chanel, Ferregamo, Carolina will all sign letters of intent.

[Inkdaub]

That's a huge Barney's!

[Manolos]

Whats the average size for a Barneys? I know they tend to be less than 100,000 sq.ft. Do you know how large the Barneys at NorthPark Center in Dallas is?

[MJLO]

I would imagine that it's different, market to market.  I'm sure the flagship in New York would be big.  But everything in new york is big, because it has such a large demographic of high end luxury shoppers in such a small area.  I'd also think that in L.A. and Chicago it would be bigger.  But given that this one is in a mall, and that Barneys is super exclusive, my guess is that it's prolly a little on the average to smaller side for them.

[Manolos]

Surprising! The Barneys at Scottsdale is actually going to be the fifth largest (though there are only eight locations including the new scottsdale location.)

By size, we will be larger than Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston but smaller than the New York, Beverly Hills, Dallas and Las Vegas locations.

Also coming to Phoenix is CALYPSO Christiane Celle. Both of you are guys I am assuming but this is a GREAT boutique store. They only have around 12 stores in the country (5 of which are in the New York area) which is huge that they are coming to Biltmore Fashion Park.

[MJLO]

I have never been to Biltmore fashion Park, I would imagine that given the neighborhood it would be a little more exclusive.  What other stores are going in that location?   What I like most about it, is that it is within the city of Phoenix.  I only wish that this kind of exclusive retail existed within downtown.

[Manolos]

Downtown retail is going to be lacking until other things really pop up, namely restaurants, hotels, residents, otherwise it would just fail. I think downtown is in high need of a namesake department store like Macy's. But I think it will take just a few years to see retail downtown, but most likely not high-end retail.

You should definitely go to Biltmore Fashion Park, I haven't been there after the redevelopment but I've heard its changed a lot. There are a lot of unique stores there and exclusive (Cartier, Escada, Cole Haan, Ralph Lauren, Stuart Weitzman) are just a few that are located at the Biltmore. CALYPSO will add a nice touch. If you have ever been to Anthropolgie, its a much more sophisticated and expensive version of Anthropologie.

I've heard that Giorgio Armani had a verbal commitment to Biltmore. Chanel and Ferragamo are between Biltmore and Fashion Square but are leaning towards Fashion Square.

Another development, CityNorth, is on the Phoenix/Scottsdale border up north and its landing the first Nordstrom and Neimans within the city boundaries (bringing the metro total to 3 Nordstroms and 2 Neimans). Also, Bloomingdale's is close to signing.

Edited by Manolos, 20 December 2006 - 11:13 AM.

[MJLO]

I have heard of city north.  How many of these exclusive malls do we need?   Will City North be an out door environment?  That could really add some charm.

[Manolos]

CityNorth will be more like Kierland Commons in Scottsdale.

The developer of CityNorth is the same developer of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, Boston's Copley Place and New Jersey's Short Hills.

IT will be outdoor and it will be next door to Desert Ridge.

[MJLO]

can you really give a developer credit for Michigan Avenue? It's kind of one of those Fifth Avenue type places that developed into a retail mecca because of location and exclusivity.

[Manolos]

The segment of Michigan Avenue with Tiffanys and others are owned and developed by a single developer. I don't think they can attribute the success and glamour of Michigan Avenue to this particular developer however.

What makes me really excited is all this new retail. I think retail really helps define a city, show that its economy and residents have reached a certain level. Previously the Phoenix metro really had just the staple luxury stores but we are now getting many more exclusive stores which separate us from other rising locales like San Diego, Denver, Seattle, Troy (Detroit).

Edited by Manolos, 21 December 2006 - 12:36 AM.

[MJLO]

I believe what you are talking about in Chicago is Water Tower Place.  It's right accross the street from the Hancock tower.  All of above mentioned places are Exclusive Shopping Malls.  I'd love to see somethign a little less fabricated but i'd take what I can get.

Little side note, Ironically enough, Woodward Avenue in Detroit was a bustling retail strip in the fasion of Michigan ave.  It's the only aforementioned city, that had anything like that. Unfortunately, all of the retailers had vacated by the early 1980's with the dramatic decline during previous two decades.  Thats why all the exclusive retail in the area is in Oakland County, (Troy).  

I digress,  It does seem that the Phoenix area is moving towards that more exclusive end.  We seem to be gaining prominence in exclusivity among our peer cities.  Although, I wonder if I'd prefer having a more balanced population than to a pampered one.

[Manolos]

Perhaps, Ive been to the Water Tower Place and it is very impresive, but there is also streetscape retail he was involved with.

And what would you mean by balanced?

[MJLO]

Well, one of the things I've noted about the Phoenix area, is that people here are very image driven.  I come from the midwest, where people tend to be less superficial. Of course not all of them, you find superficiality everywhere.  But it seems to be more a way of life in the valley.  People seem to care very much how they appear and less with being who they really are. I would worry that Phoenix is trending to a less down to earth reputation, with more of a snobby, our (fill in the blank) doesn't smell, kind of attitude.

[Manolos]

I think this is how many perceive the west in general. When I lived in NYC, most people had this skewed view of how peopel from Cali or the west were in general. I think yes people out here may have a more superficial outlook sometimes but I don't htink its overwhelming. I also don't think its these types of stores that bring the superficiality.

Regardless, Scottsdale has millions of wealthy tourists each year and these new stores I think will definitely perform well. I don't know why some stores like Chanel have hesitated to move here. Chanel would have huge success.

[MJLO]

So Scottsdale is getting the tourists.  This does make sense, there are a ton of exclusive resorts there.  Are there any suggestions for how we can get these people to explore the rest of the valley?   I'd love to see the entire area, reach that next level, not only Scottsdale.