Work intensifies ahead of SoNo Collection opening date
Construction intensifies in advance of an Oct. 11 grand opening, some retailers will not be ready
For shoppers who have been anticipating the grand opening of the SoNo Collection, scheduled for the second weekend of October, some will be disappointed that they will have to wait longer for the full roster of stores and eateries to fill in the concourses that stretch from Nordstrom to Bloomingdale’s.
But there is precedent for major shopping centers opening with an incomplete complement of retailers — if not many that do so at the key juncture when the SoNo Collection will open its doors, on the eve of the holiday shopping season.
The SoNo Collection will open on Friday, Oct. 11, close to 30 months after original developer GGP commenced construction in advance of being acquired last year by Brookfield Properties. It is Brookfield’s biggest retail project in the Northeast since an expansion a decade ago of the Natick Collection mall in Massachusetts.
For the first time on Tuesday, Brookfield Properties managers acknowledged that not all SoNo Collection stores will be ready to open at the outset, despite the real estate giant having leases in place for 90 percent of the 725,000squarefoot enclosed mall.
A Brookfield spokesperson subsequently told Hearst Connecticut Media that only “a handful” of stores will open at the outset alongside department store anchors Bloomingdales and Nordstrom, without specifying the pace at which others will hold their own openings.
If only amounting to a footnote in the story arc of The SoNo Collection, the revelation nevertheless came as a surprise after Brookfield Properties stated definitively last May that
the mall would open in October on its planned timeline, ultimately setting a date two weeks in advance of the one contemplated by predecessor developer GGP.
GGP reiterated that timeline in May after the CEO of Pinstripes told Hearst Connecticut Media that he anticipated a November opening for the bowling, bocce and bistro entertainment concept that will occupy a prominent piece of SoNo Collection real estate, opening onto a large, openair terrace with Long Island Sound visible in the distance.
On Tuesday, Brookfield Properties managers said that while work is now being done around the clock with a few weeks to go before final inspections, the project was on budget and the construction schedule was not having an impact on the scheduled openings.
“The rolling opening is simply to accommodate our tenants and allow them to efficiently open in a time frame that best suits their needs,” stated Brookfield spokeswoman Lindsay Kahn, in an email response to a Hearst Connecticut Media query on the plan. “This is not unusual for a project of this scale. While holiday (traffic) is certainly important, each retailer has their own strategy ... and funding constraints (which) they need to consider.”
When the Empire Outlets opened in May on Staten Island, the initial slate of retailers represented less than a quarter of the total capacity for the only retail outlet center within New York City’s five boroughs. Nordstrom Rack arrived July 4 as part of a second wave of new tenants lasting much of the summer; as the calendar flipped to autumn, several more restaurants are lined up for their own debuts at Empire Outlets.
But there are opposite examples of new retail centers emphasizing the “grand” in the grandopening concept by having their tenants in place from the start. That includes in Connecticut with the 2015 arrival of the Tanger Outlets at Foxwoods, which drew thousands of shoppers and casino patrons on its first day of operation in May that year, on the promise of more than 70 new stores throwing open their doors simultaneously.
Tanger Outlets at Foxwoods remains a retail success story, with only a small handful of available storefronts to best the 10 percent vacancy rate nationally as of the second quarter, as calculated by the Reis real estate information subsidiary of Moody’s Analytics.
The same could be said of The SoNo Collection, given the 90 percent lease figure Brookfield cites, if actual occupancies will take a little longer.
Will SoNo Collection shoppers wait for a critical mass of stores before turning out in force? That is anyone’s guess before the second weekend of October, but Brookfield is confident the mall will be hopping as the days count down toward Black Friday and more stores come online.
And if that means fewer receipts to ring up in October, SoNo Collection’s senior general manager Matthew Seebeck said there is a silver lining to staging openings over time, giving his staff and external vendors a little more time and elbow room to learn the new facility and its systems to ensure everything goes smoothly for visitors.
“On Oct. 11, we’re opening ... all of our ‘public realm’ space, all of the parking, all for our customers to come and enjoy,” Seebeck said. “There will be some retailers that open . ... More stores will open throughout the end of the year and into the first quarter of 2020, but November in particular will be an excellent month for the SoNo Collection.”
Kelly Kultys contributed to this report.