Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
This Fashion Outlet is nonsense.
You guys realize that if they really do stuff this place full of Outlets for high end brands, there is even LESS likelihood that we'll get the real thing?
Gucci isn't wanna open a FLS "full line store" as we call it in the industry, if it's two blocks away from their Outlet. Ditto for Prada, Celine, etc etc etc etc.
If this "mall" succeeds at bringing big names to the city, I fear it will only serve to push back the date/time in which we get the upscale/actual stores we need on Walnut.
There's a part of me that feels like this is just a way to throw our market a bone. A lot of these brands know there is enough money here to support locations, but their perception of the region is still such where they don't want to go full bore and give us a full line store, even if the store would bring in a ton of revenue. I constantly see retailers making decisions based not on the bottom line, but in terms of how it will affect their "image".
So...if you open an Outlet, it's a way to get some dollars from the market without actually committing to the market in a sincere way. It's actually very cynical.
I really wanted the Gallery to become a big sort of lifestyle/big box center...with things the Container Store and other "mall" type stores.
I fear we're so excited to see something happen here that we'll just accept anything. I just see this at another attempt of giving us a Franklin Mills. Like that, this will fail.
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You need BOTH, in my opinion. I don't really see most middle-class tourist families, or conventioneers, or even resident Millennials and young professionals, spending lots of money--or even frequenting and browsing, for that matter--in full-price, full-line Gucci and Prada stores. It's a fairly high-end segment of the market that spends enough money in those types of stores to make them profitable enough to stay open. Not that Center City shouldn't be able to support that (on, e.g., Walnut Street near Rittenhouse Square), and I certainly think that Center City deserves them, but it also needs the kind of retail that a Premium Outlets, for example, offers. That is, IF you want to attract large numbers of tourists, visitors, conventioneers, and residents to Center City, and not just the wealthy.
For example, some of the biggest tourist draws in NYC now are stores like Century 21, and not the full-line luxury stores on Fifth Avenue. Not that the presence of one type should preclude the other type, but I think it's a bit unrealistic to think that full-line luxury stores, alone, will support the tourist and residential development of Center City. Especially when you've experienced the crowds drawn by these types of outlet centers in other areas of the country frequented by tourists (Franklin Mills is, I believe, an exception).
What we really need in Center City is a large diversity of retail, like we haven't seen since the the 1950s (when East Market had its last heyday, and multiple department stores co-existed with fancy boutiques, etc. in other parts of Center City). Yes, we're gaining lots of new residents in CC and surrounding neighborhoods who will need convenient access to lifestyle/big box stores, but we also need to address the needs and wants of much larger numbers of tourists, visitors, and conventioneers to make Philly a truly world-class city. We
should be able to have it all.
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). UPA apparently considers the lot at 38th and Market to be part of its plans for a "Platinum Corridor" along Market between 38th and 42nd.
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