Retail News Coming Fast And Furious
The latest round of retail news makes it abundantly clear that downtown Spokane is getting its act together just in time.
Either that, or it is already too late.
Another huge outbreak of retail sprawl looms.
Major developments of the past few weeks include:
One - The Bon has signed up to anchor the long-awaited Spokane Valley megamall at I-90 and Sullivan Road, which is going ahead.
Two - Redevelopment of Shadle Shopping Center continues to go forward. Plans include three new anchor-class stores.
Shadle is battling back from a mauling by neighboring NorthTown. Over the past few years, NorthTown reconfigured and doubled its size to more than 1 million square feet, added three new major anchor stores, and installed scores of new specialty shops.
Three - Preliminary paperwork has been filed for a new strip mall at Sullivan and Broadway in the Spokane Valley, which rumors have linked with Wal-Mart. Spokane County planners say the developer has declined to spell out details of the project at this point.
Wal-Mart officials say it is company policy not to disclose plans until projects are fully approved.
Four - Home Depot, the Wal-Mart of the home improvement and garden center trade, has filed plans for a giant store in the Spokane Valley at Sprague and Fancher. The 33-acre project, contingent on zoning, includes space for a large retailer and two smaller stores, as yet not named. Total parking spaces - 2,346! This is no small matter.
Home Depot has plans for a second center way out on North Division.
All this, coming atop the ever-growing popularity of the Inland Northwest’s largest regional mall at NorthTown, means that only an heroic 11th-hour effort can save the core.
Redevelopment of the River Park Square shopping complex must be approved and executed post haste to ensure that Nordstrom and The Bon stay downtown.
Either that, or downtown Spokane as we know it today will cease to be.
Owners of River Park Square, and this newspaper, say they have no change in plans for the $80-million private/public project.
Some have made an issue of whether The Bon, which has a store at NorthTown, would stay downtown when the Spokane Valley Mall store opens in just two years, as now scheduled. These pundits hypothesize that three Bons in one market might be a bit many.
But I am almost positive that lurking somewhere in my files are notes or a tape testifying just the opposite. I was unable to ferret out the information in time for this column. But if memory serves, I have a record of a verbal commitment from The Bon’s top executives to the effect that they will stay downtown even with three stores.
A Valley Bon is by no means a new idea. The Bon was the first anchor to commit to the ill-fated Cafaro Co. monster mall at Liberty Lake about seven or eight years ago.
No matter, The Bon has never stopped wanting a store in the Valley. No problem.
The downtown Bon does an excellent business and is highly profitable. At times, I recall, downtown has been the companywide performance leader in recent years.
It strikes me that the longstanding popularity of The Bon easily gives it the strength in this market for three stores. Indeed, I believe my misplaced notes or tape, if they turn up, will show that company executives cited three stores as the optimum number for The Bon in this market.
If worse comes to worse, and downtown loses its last two retail anchors, it has been suggested that the slack could be taken up by emphasizing creme-de-la-creme specialty shopping.
But it’s difficult to imagine a conglomeration of specialty shops capable of attracting anything approaching the shopping volume that major retailing has generated downtown.
So there’s no turning back or standing still. Either downtown takes a giant leap forward now, or there will be many more empty storefronts to fill. The character of downtown will change forever.
Maybe that would be a plus. It could be good for Spokane. But I doubt it.
, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel’s column appears on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday.