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What I would love - a Saks downtown along with some upper end chains and some locally owned boutiques. As far as high end department stores go, most of the Mobile population is reduced to driving to NOLA or Birmingham.
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I hope this doesn't come across as "bashing" Mobile, but I don't think Mobile is big enough or wealthy enough to support upper-end retail with its local market alone. I think you'd have to bring in a lot of tourists, whether it is downtown or anywhere else in metro Mobile. About the only somewhat small markets I can think of that have stores like Saks are places like Charleston, Sarasota, and Naples that attract significant numbers of wealthy tourists.
(I'll add that little San Marcos has big outlet stores for both Saks and Neiman Marcus
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Of course, mention the possibility of expanding tourism to many Alabamians, and the response you'll get is that "tourism creates only minimum-wage jobs."
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