Bridge Park lands high-end men’s clothing store

Dublin’s Bridge Park development will add a luxury men’s wear shop late this summer.

Hellman Clothiers is tentatively set to open in July or August, owner Chuck Hellman said. The shop will be the third men’s clothing store for the Cincinnati native.

The 2,700-square-foot shop at 6630 Riverside Drive “will be all high-end men’s wear, most brands from Europe,” he said.

“It will be things you won’t see at regular big-box stores like Nordstrom or Saks. We’ll have 40 to 50 mannequins to show guys how to put things together, professional stylists, a shoe presentation, sportswear and accessories.”

Hellman has been in the men’s fashion business since graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1983.

The path to opening his own stores started around 2012, when Hellman was CEO of Robert Graham, a New York-based luxury men’s fashion brand.

In 2012, he and two partners bought Blaine’s Fine Men’s Apparel in Cincinnati. Two years later, he bought out his partners and in 2017, opened Hellman Clothiers in downtown Cincinnati.

“It did way better than expected. I thought it was a formula and model that could expand,” he said.

One of his customers was Luke Fickell, a former Ohio State University assistant football coach who became head coach at the University of Cincinnati.

“He said I should talk to his brother-in-law Bob Hoying,” Hellman said.

Hoying, the former Buckeye quarterback, is a principal at Crawford Hoying, the developer of Bridge Park.

“That was about eight

months ago,” Hellman said. “I did a lot of due diligence and decided the other day I wanted to do it.”

While central Ohio is home to some high-end men’s retailers such as Jeffrey Thomas in Upper Arlington and Godfrys in Polaris, there is “definitely a void for that kind of product in the Columbus market,” said Lee Peterson, an executive vice president at WD Partners, a Dublin retail-consulting company. “There are some shops, but certainly not enough, especially considering the level of executive you have here.

“Columbus retailers alone could supply them with all the business they could handle, provided that the product and especially the services are equal to or better than what you get in places like Chicago or New York,” Peterson said.

Hellman’s merchandise is hardly inexpensive: Prices at the Cincinnati location run as high as $1,200 for a blazer or $2,300 for an overcoat.

“You’ll get over the cost when you’ve worn something for the ninth time and still feel good wearing it,” Hellman said.

If the Dublin shop performs well, Hellman has his sights on expanding to a total of as many as 10 locations, including a luxury women’s store.

Amazon has data centers in New Albany, Dublin and Hilliard, and Facebook is building a data center in New Albany as well.