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DEPARTMENT STORES 72 • SHOPPING CENTER BUSINESS • December 2017 A t a time when there are few new department stores open- ing across the country, Nord- strom has opened its long awaited new flagship at Westfield Century City on the Westside in Los Angeles. It also has opened its new 3,000-square- foot concept store Nordstrom Local in nearby West Hollywood. In 2019, Nordstrom will open another full line store along with Bloomingdale's in GGP's SoNo project in Norwalk, Connecticut. But these are exceptions as promotional department stores like Macy's and JCPenney close under-per- forming stores in a number of centers. In New York City, while JCPenney is seeking to exit its Manhattan Mall location in the Herald Square District, specialty department stores like Nord- strom, Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus, together with their respective off-price concepts, have been securing new locations in the past few years and have been in the process of open- ing additional stores. Recently, Saks Fifth Avenue has ex- panded its foothold in New York City in Lower Manhattan, augmenting its iconic flagship in the heart of the Plaza District in Midtown. In a bold move, Saks chose to court the downtown customer by joining the redeveloped retail at Brookfield Place, with a women's store that opened in fall 2016 and a separate men's store opening shortly thereafter in early spring 2017. The retail mix at Brookfield Place in- cludes restaurants and both luxury and aspirational luxury tenants, such as Gu- cci, Bottega Veneta, Ferragamo along with Tory Burch and J. Crew. Brookfield connects with Westfield's World Trade Center, anchored by Apple and Eataly, which contains the important PATH train station that brings in riders from New Jersey and also feeds into the new Fulton Street Transportation Terminal directly to the east on Broadway. At the same time, Saks Off Fifth opened its first store in Manhattan, taking approx- imately 50,000 square feet of multi-level space below grade on East 57th Street, right off the corner of Lexington Avenue, and a few blocks south of Bloomingdale's flagship store. Neiman Marcus has entered the New York City market gingerly, with its Nei- man Marcus Last Call concept opening in downtown Brooklyn, adjacent to a highly successful Sephora store, near the court- houses and close-by Fulton Street Mall. With its exclusive Bergdorf Goodman franchise in the Plaza District, Neiman resisted for many years the temptation of placing a luxury competitor in Manhattan. But it was successfully courted to an- chor the Related and Oxford Properties' Hudson Yards project on the far Westside. Hudson Yards, reputed to be the most expensive real estate development in the United States, includes state-of-the-art office towers and high-end residences, in addition to 750,000 square feet of retail. And the neighborhood is augmented with other projects, both residential and office, which are transforming this part of Manhattan in to a new "city within a city." Neiman was originally slated to take 250,000 square feet of the retail por- tion of the project on levels five, six and seven, with specialty retail tenants and restaurants occupying the lower floors. Neiman has now agreed to relinquish approximately 25,000 square feet, which will now become high-end temporary of- fice, similar to a WeWork-style workspace. While providing a diversified pool of office workers, it is also intended to fur- ther drive traffic to the retail and dining. The retail component of Hudson Yards was originally scheduled to open in fall 2018. The opening will now occur in fall 2019, when the balance of the office development has been com- pleted and occupied. Over the course of years, Nord- strom had sought the right time and o p p o r t u n i t y for a full-line flagship in Manhattan, which will provide global exposure. While doing so, its Nord- strom Rack off-price division entered New York City in Union Square, during the early stages of the recovery after the financial crisis. The concept seemed to hit the market at the right time, appealing to a value-driv- en customer and taking advantage of the decline of several local competitors in this category. Today, the Union Square location has grown into one of the most successful stores in the Rack portfolio. Union Square was followed by three additional Rack stores in the boroughs. At the end of October 2017, the Rack opened its second Manhattan store, on Sixth Avenue just south of Macy's, in the dynamic Herald Square market. With the time-constrained customer in mind, the new store is the next step technologically, with a new app to facilitate easy ordering and check out, well located gender neu- tral dressing rooms, and enhancements to the shopping experience. Several years ago, Nordstrom was able to secure a full line store at a location at the base of a new luxury residential tow- er, currently under development by Extell, on 57th Street near Columbus Circle, and aptly called The Nordstrom Tower. Like Urban Department Stores Grow With The Times While many stores are shuttering, others are adapting to a new retail climate, showing up at all the right times and places. Stephen Stephanou Stephen Stephanou Principal Crown Retail Services