California Apparel News

San Francisco is not a mall city, according to its residents and real estate executives. But California’s legendary European-style city may have to change its ways.

Westfield San Francisco Centre debuted Sept. 28 near fashionable Union Square. It claims to be the largest urban mall west of the Mississippi River.

Shopping center developers The Westfield Group and Forest City Commercial Group renovated the mall’s existing 500,000-square-foot space and built 1 million square feet of new retail space.

The newly expanded mall will attempt to bridge a cultural gap.

It may appeal to both Bay Area residents and tourists seeking the trendiest fashion and to those San Franciscans on a mission to preserve their city’s unique past.

For the preservationists, the landmark Emporium building’s 102-foot-wide dome was renovated for the mall. For the style conscious, the center offers the best of department store retail, what with the West Coast flagship of Bloomingdale’s and a renovation of Nordstrom, the second-largest in the Seattle-based retailer’s chain.

It also offers 326,000 square feet of new specialty retail space. It houses new retail concepts such as footwear and accessories boutique Neda by Bebe, as well as Blu by Antik Denim, a second retail location for Los Angeles–based Blue Holdings Inc.

There is a boutique for British designer Reiss, the footwear and athletic line Adidas, and some of retail’s most coveted mall tenants such as H&M, MNG by Mango, Fourth & Towne, Hollister, Metropark, Ruehl and Lucky.

According to real estate executive Kazuko Morgan, the debut of Westfield San Francisco Centre is overdue. “San Francisco has been under-retailed,” said Morgan, senior director of the San Francisco office of Cushman & Wakefield Inc. The only other shopping center within the borders of this city of more than 739,000 people is Stonestown, near its southeast edge.

Retail space is scarce and expensive in San Francisco. For example, a square foot of commercial space can range from $150 to $250 in the 800 block of Market Street, according to Morgan. As a result, the city does not have a lot of the national specialty retailers that are well-known in other parts of the United States.

The mall also is forecast to inject $17.5 million annually into city government coffers, as well as to generate 3,350 permanent jobs. It is not expected to compete with San Francisco’s boutique retail scene, said Catherine Chow, co-owner of fashion store Azalea in the city’s Hayes Valley neighborhood.

“Boutiques have a niche market, and a lot of our customers are not mall shoppers,” Chow said. “If anything, [the mall developers] are beautifying the area, and they’re drawing more people into San Francisco. Maybe these people will go to Hayes Valley and maybe they’ll shop Azalea.”

Bloomingdale’s flagship style

For many retailers, the Westfield San Francisco Centre will serve as a high-profile marquee to display their new style. Michael Gould, Bloomingdale’s chairman and chief executive, said its 338,000-square-foot flagship would be one of the best realizations of what his store has to offer.

The store showcases boutiques for Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. It also offers four levels of some of the most sought after luxury brands such as Jimmy Choo. Yet, no brand will be able to visually dominate the other when customers walk down store aisles, Gould said.

This old problem was solved by new architecture. Instead of one aisle, consumers walk down three aisles on all of Bloomingdale’s floors. “No department will be blocked by others,” Gould said. “We’re the friendliest store possible, and each area has an intimacy about it.”

Bloomingdale’s walls feature 750 pieces of art. There restrooms and fitting rooms that Gould described as “substantially” larger than those in other stores.

The San Francisco Bloomingdale’s will pave the way for several others in California, including stores in San Diego (which will open Nov. 15) and at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa (which should open early next year).

The Nordstrom store at the San Francisco shopping center has been undergoing renovation over the past couple of years, according to Deniz Anders, a company representative. “But with Bloomingdale’s coming in, the bar is higher,” she said.

The 350,000-square-foot Nordstrom store has four levels above the three-level mall, plus a fifth level for Spa Nordstrom, its center for massage and beauty treatments.

New designers for the San Francisco Nordstrom are Derek Lam, Stella McCartney and Rick Owens for the Collector’s department; Nina Ricci for the Couture department; and Karl Lagerfeld, Prada Denim, McQ–Alexander McQueen for the “Via C” department.

Specialty too

Westfield San Francisco Centre also represents an opportunity for specialty retailers to find new markets. Planet Funk contemporary fashion and premium-denim store opened its first boutique in the city at the shopping center. Oren Hayun, president of the Los Angeles–based 18-store chain, said the mall was well-placed to serve tourists from all over the world, as well as Bay Area residents.

However, the new market will mean changes. “It’s an extension of what we do in Los Angeles,” Hayun said of the store. “[The Bay Area customer] is a more straightforward customer, and somewhat more conservative.”

He said the San Francisco store would sell more outerwear and knitwear than do his Los Angeles stores. It also will sell its popular lines such as True Religion, Rock & Republic, Triple 5 Soul and Frankie B.

The shopping center also may pave the way for a blossoming of luxury retail in San Francisco. A Barneys New York will open next fall. Boutiques for brands Puma and Oakley recently opened on the city’s Market Street.

Richard Giss, a retail consultant for the Los Angeles offices of Deloitte & Touche, said that the rest of the state ought to expect more luxury retail. “An awful lot of malls have been showing their age,” Giss said. “Either they put on another coat of lipstick, or developers renovate it into a state-of-the-art mall.”