Nordstrom finally arrives in New York
To open first full-line store in Manhattan
NEW YORK: The Nordstrom family has run stores for more than a century, first selling shoes in the Pacific Northwest and later introducing fashion-forward clothing to wealthy suburbanites across the United States.
But the Nordstroms, one of the last remaining dynasties of US retailing, had never made a big bet in US retailing capital until now.
On Thursday, Nordstrom will open its first full-line store in Manhattan, a sleek, three-floor home to men’s clothing, shoes and grooming supplies at 57th Street and Broadway.
The Seattle-based company arrives in New York at an inauspicious time for retailers. Its competitors are selling off or converting some of their grandest stores, not building new ones. The city’s toniest shopping strips, in SoHo and on Madison Avenue, have been littered with empty store fronts.
But the Nordstroms think they can buck the trend, even as many investors on Wall Street have grown wary of brick-and-mortar retailing.
The company created a mock-up of the new men’s store in an industrial area outside Seattle, accessible only to employees, as it tried to figure out how best to appeal to both New York’s fashion mavens and more down-to-earth shoppers on lunch break.
“We know a market like New York doesn’t need just another place to buy a pair of pants,” said Peter Nordstrom, a company co-president and a great-grandson of the co-founder John W. Nordstrom.
The store may serve as a test case for whether department stores have a future, as people more frequently shop online. To compete, Nordstrom is aiming to combine cutting-edge technology with old-school in-store service.
Rag-snapping shoe shiners will work on the bottom floor, while digital screens in the suit section will display custom-made jackets on an avatar of the shopper. There will be 16 tailors on staff — part of the largest network of tailors in North America.
If a customer needs a tie at two in the
morning, he can order it online and a Nordstrom employee will meet him at a store entrance — no matter the hour. Returns can be made by simply scanning an item at a digital kiosk and depositing it in a bin — no human interaction needed.
The company plans to open an even larger women’s store, totalling seven stories, across from the men’s store in the autumn of 2019. And Nordstrom already operates two Nordstrom Rack stores — a line of discount stores that has flourished among bargain hunters — in Manhattan.
One reason the company is making such a big investment in Manhattan: Other similar businesses find that their Manhattan stores are among their best performing — despite all of the city’s recent retail turmoil.
But opening large, cutting-edge stores in one of the priciest real estate markets — and most competitive retail environments — in the world is a costly endeavour.
“It is definitely risky, there is no question about it,” said Joel Bines, global cohead of retail at AlixPartners, a consulting firm. “You need to have nerves of steel to attempt to run a large-scale profitable shopping destination in Manhattan.”
Nordstrom considered locating its new store in the Hudson Yards development, on the Far West Side. But it settled on the immediate area around Columbus Circle, near the retail shops in the Time Warner Center and a hive of ultraluxury apartment construction.
Initially, Nordstrom planned to open a combined men’s and women’s store that would be part of a new building, but decided to open a dedicated men’s store when a large space — previously occupied by several banks, a struggling discount retailer and a muffin shop — opened up nearby.
Nordstrom signed the lease for the men’s store property in late 2015. Faith Hope Consolo, a retail broker at Douglas Elliman, said rents were generally higher then.
But Nordstrom may have gotten a deal, she said, because of the size of the property. A Nordstrom spokeswoman declined to comment on the terms of the lease.
The women’s store, meanwhile, will be constructed from the ground up in the new building.