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FourOneFive Dec 12, 2005 7:20 AM

San Francisco's Retail Scene
 
With all the retail activity around Union Square and the impending opening of the Westfield San Francisco Center next year, I figured it deserved its own thread.

Juicy picks S.F. for 1st flagship
Sarah Duxbury


San Francisco is ripe for Juicy.

Come spring 2006, the city will be home to Juicy Couture's first flagship store. San Francisco will be the company's fourth and largest location as it expands and repositions itself as a luxury lifestyle brand.

Juicy signed a 10-year master lease on the corner of Grant Avenue and Geary Street, and will feature its products in more than 5,000 square feet on four selling floors. The company was looking for a site for about six months.

"We knew we wanted to open a flagship in San Francisco," said Susan Kellogg, group president at Liz Claiborne Inc., Juicy's parent company. "We wanted to make sure we were in a prime location, next to luxury retailers and off the Square."

Juicy's new neighbors include Hermès, Bottega Veneta and Prada.

Architecturally significant flagship stores are increasingly important for companies looking to define and showcase their brands. Inside, the retailers create their ideal shopping environment.

Juicy founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor will have ultimate say over the look and layout of the San Francisco store.

"When you have your own store, you are able to maximize the high end of the business and create a separate ambiance for luxury pieces," Kennedy said. "It's very difficult to do that in a department store."

In retail, size does matter.

"This location lets people see the breadth of their line," said Kazuko Morgan, who brokered the deal.

Only three other standalone Juicy stores are open -- in Las Vegas, Atlanta and Dallas. All are smaller than the San Francisco flagship. A lease has been signed for a site on Boston's Newberry Street, and a flagship store is scheduled to open in Tokyo in early 2006.

The flurry of real estate activity signals how eager Juicy is to expand. The company plans to open 10 to 15 stores worldwide in 2006, depending on its luck finding real estate.

Liz Claiborne bought Juicy in 2003 with designs to grow the popular brand beyond its casual T-shirt and tracksuit roots. Juicy now has complete men's and children's lines, as well as jewelry and handbags that sell for $1,500. Next spring, Juicy will introduce a highly anticipated evening collection called Couture Couture, as well as new accessory categories. A fresh deal with Movado will have Juicy hocking watches by the end of 2006.

Soon, those T-shirts and tracksuits will account for less than 50 percent of Juicy revenue. Standalone stores are central to that shift.

San Francisco, with its taste for fashion on both the casual and luxury ends of the spectrum, is clearly a high priority. In addition to the flagship, Juicy could open a second standalone store in Westfield San Francisco Centre when that project opens next fall.

Kennedy allowed that the Westfield project was "a possibility," but would neither confirm nor deny that Juicy is interested in a second store there.

Sarah Duxbury covers retail for the San Francisco Business Times.
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FourOneFive Dec 12, 2005 7:26 AM

Fashion tip: Barneys bound for Union Square
Sarah Duxbury


Barneys New York is getting ready to try on San Francisco.

Zeroing in on almost 60,000 square feet of retail space on Stockton Street, the upscale New York City fashion institution is primed to join the increasingly competitive fray of Union Square. Combined with next year's opening of Bloomingdale's, Barneys would bring the number of department stores within a five-block radius to six.

Barneys, purchased by Jones Apparel Group for $400 million last December, has ample cash to expand and has been looking for a spot for its first San Francisco store for more than a year. The Westfield San Francisco Centre was eager to win them as an accompaniment to the impending Bloomingdale's, but Barneys looks most likely to settle in the former home of FAO Schwarz at 47 Stockton St. That building, across the street from Macy's and Crate & Barrel and one block south of Neiman Marcus, has remained about three-quarters vacant since FAO Schwarz closed three years ago.

Expectations are that Barneys will sign a lease within several weeks. The company said it would not comment before a lease is signed, and a broker for the landlord said a deal is not yet in place.

"(Barneys is) certainly a tenant we continue to talk to, but nothing has been done," said Vikki Johnson of broker Johnson Hoke.

Other retail brokers believe a deal is imminent.

"They are way down the road on this site," said Julie Taylor, a broker with GVA Whitney Cressman. "It is all but confirmed."

Size-wise, 47 Stockton fits with Barney's criteria for a flagship store, which are all bigger than 40,000 square feet. Rent on the building is likely to range between $1.6 million and $2 million a year, according to sources familiar with the area.

Existing tenants Birkenstock and Ghirardelli, which have active leases in the building, would have to relocate to make way for Barneys. Only 30,000 square feet of the five-story building is currently vacant, with just 5,000 of them on the ground floor. Birkenstock has 17,900 square feet on the ground and basement floors, and Ghirardelli has about 1,200 square-feet at street level.

Fabrizio Parini, CEO of Ghirardelli, said that he has been told by the building's broker that a master tenant is eager to take over the entire building, including Ghirardelli's retail space. Parini said he has over four years remaining on his lease and will not finalize any agreement before Christmas. Birkenstock did not return a call seeking comment.

Barneys is eager to expand and has enjoyed same-store sales growth in excess of 15 percent for the past two years, as the luxury retail market boomed.

Howard Socol, president and CEO of Barneys, said in February 2003 that the company would open two new Barneys department stores by 2007.

In April, 2005, Barneys signed a 46,000-square-foot lease at Copley Place in Boston to open its first new flagship store in more than 11 years. It will open in the spring of 2006.

The company has flagship stores in New York, Chicago and Beverly Hills, with additional full-service stores in Seattle, Manhasset, N.Y. and Chestnut Hill, Mass. It also has seven, smaller and trendier Co-op locations, which it began expanding outside of New York City in 2003, and 11 outlet stores around the country.

Following this month's opening of European fashion retailer H&M, Barneys will be "a tremendous catalyst for Stockton Street," Taylor said. "Both Stockton and Powell have, within a year's time, brought in two tremendously powerful retail anchors, strengthening those north-south corridors."

That strengthening reflects the general firming up of the Union Square area, where vacancies are falling and rents have again begun to rise.
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EastBayHardCore Dec 12, 2005 7:28 AM

Cool, 3 flagships in the past year or so. The new retailers seem to be reluctant to move west of Powell though.

FourOneFive Dec 12, 2005 7:42 AM

west of powell is more of the City's theater district though. i wouldn't want too many retailers pushing into that district. and, there are plenty of spots east of powell that still need to be filled too.

EastBayHardCore Dec 12, 2005 8:03 AM

You're right, I can think of a handful of large retail spaces east of Stockton that still need tenants.

sf_eddo Dec 12, 2005 8:43 AM

How are 'flagship' versions of a retailer different from a normal version? Are they just bigger ones?

And is there a list of flagship retailers currently in San Francisco? I have a feeling pretty much every store around Union Square is perhaps a 'flagship' store.

EastBayHardCore Dec 12, 2005 9:08 AM

Interesting definition of flagship, it all makes sense now :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship

J Church Dec 12, 2005 5:41 PM

in san francisco, a 'flagship' store is any union square retailer that's new to town, best as i can tell.

sf_eddo Dec 12, 2005 6:39 PM

From the Wikipedia definition, flagship means
"the most important or leading member of a group. It has also come to be an adjective, as in the "flagship product" of a manufacturing company or "flagship store" of a retail chain."

As far as I can tell, probably every store that has a location in Union Square would be a flagship store, if only for its prime retail location.

J Church, I've heard 'flagship' described for old (Macy's West, Neiman Marcus, Wilkes Bashford, Nordstrom's, etc.) as well as new stores (Old Navy, Apple, H&M, Virgin, Nike, Williams-Sonoma, etc.) in Union Square, though I suppose there had to be some point and time when every store was new to Union Square.

J Church Dec 12, 2005 6:46 PM

i'm being tongue-in-cheek. the term gets thrown around a lot, when more often than not, yeah, that's all it seems to mean--the store is at union square. is it noticeably larger than other stores? more of a showplace? hard to tell sometimes.

craeg Dec 12, 2005 9:07 PM

we need a barneys co-op and a H&M mens.

J Church Dec 12, 2005 9:09 PM

has anyone been down to H&M yet?

craeg Dec 12, 2005 9:11 PM

I went like two weeks ago. They have some neat and CHEAP stuff. I got some merino wool sweaters for 34 bucks a piece.
I had to wait in line to get in.

EastBayHardCore Dec 12, 2005 9:13 PM

I've been down there, but the two times I went there was a line to get into the 150 Powell store. I went in 150 Post for about 5 seconds with the gf and couldn't take the high pitched squeals of all the women in there so I left.

LAMetroGuy Dec 12, 2005 9:15 PM

I know that Barneys has three flagship stores... Madison Avenue in New York City, Los Angeles/Beverly Hills and Chicago. So this will be its 4th flagship store? Very cool! Two flagship Barneys on the west coast!

New York Barneys:

http://www.aacrealty.com/images/barneys_newyork.jpg

Beverly Hills Barneys:
http://www.aacrealty.com/images/barneys_california.jpg

Chicago Barneys:

http://www.aacrealty.com/images/barneys_chicago.jpg

San Francisco Barneys:

?????

J Church Dec 12, 2005 9:20 PM

high pitched squeals of all the women

what, like stell-uhhh!?

FourOneFive Dec 12, 2005 9:28 PM

The future Barney's San Francisco (the former FAO):

http://www.igougo.com/photos/journal_photos/fao.JPG

EastBayHardCore Dec 12, 2005 9:29 PM

More like this Steve.

Overweight 20-something girl #1: OMG OMG OMG That top is SOOO CUTE!

Overweight 20-something girl #2: I KNOOOOWWW! ITS HOT HUH? (Spins around)

ME: (notices rolls covered with ANGRY red stretchmarks creeping out all sides...promptly leaves store to vomit in the alley)

LAMetroGuy Dec 12, 2005 9:32 PM

Thanks FourOneFive, I think that spot is perfect for Barneys! I would like to make a trip just to visit the new stores!

J_Taylor Dec 12, 2005 9:33 PM

I have been to H&M in Sf, same with my wife.
We both shoped at the chain when we lived in Germany.
I do like the cloths..
but yes Teknoturd...that scean repeats its self over and over here in the states. Sad to say.


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