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Originally Posted by delts145
I totally respect your opinion Brigham, especially your appreciation for the finer things in life. No one should expect a Saks or a Neimans to make an announcement of a Salt Lake location in the next couple of years, and I realize that is perhaps what you were implying. I would strongly disagree with anyone though, regarding Salt Lake City or it's rapidly expanding metro as NEVER landing a Neiman Marcus or a Saks Fifth Avenue. I am very confident that given a reasonably healthy economy, there will be future retailers, such as Saks announced within the next five to seven years. I am from a retail background, and have managed in the past one of the highest end sections in the nation, at a Bloomingdales.
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Managing the Century City Bloomingdales doesn't mean that you make the corporate decisions for other higher end department stores. My friend is a "higher level" employee at Christian Dior (he's based in NY) and worked for Gucci as well, but that doesn't mean he knows why or where the next Dior or Gucci is going to go.
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Originally Posted by delts145
Many of your A and B points are retail 101, but on the Neimans and Saks issue, it would be like telling Denver X number of years ago, that it would never have a Saks or Neimans.
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It's retail 101 because that's the fundamentals of retail. An A store is bigger and offers more exclusive selections than a B store. SLC would
NEVER get a West coast FLAGSHIP A-store designer that beats our any of the other larger markets like LA, SF, Las Vegas, Seattle, or even Denver.
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Originally Posted by delts145
Downtown Salt Lake City's retail market will not be influenced solely by it's metro inhabitants.
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Neither do any of the other markets in the U.S. Most retailers depend on a mixture of both local and visitors. But places like LA and SF have such a large wealthy population base that they do not depend AS MUCH on visitors.
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Originally Posted by delts145
Certainly, the continuance of Salt Lake's booming metro expansion is important, but one must also put a heavy amount of attention on it's huge visitor market. Downtown Salt Lake City is already one of the leading tourist destinations in the nation.
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Where is your source that "Downtown SLC is already one of the leading tourist destinations in the nation?" How many exactly? Is it influenced by Mormon tourism and ski trips?
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Originally Posted by delts145
At the peak of the former Crossroads Nordstrom, 40-plus percent of it's business was coming from out of town visitors. Downtown Salt Lake City is not like many Downtowns in the nation.
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You're right, it's not like Downtown Portland, Seattle, Denver, SF, Chicago, etc. It's a lot smaller.
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Originally Posted by delts145
For example, in the forseeable future(ten years)you will never find a flagship style Nordstrom in Downtown L.A., but it's a perfect fit right now for Downtown Salt Lake City.
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Downtown LA is filled with historic buildings that lend themselves well to future retail development, especially by Pershing Square and the Jewelry District, which has been waning during the economic downturn.
Downtown LA has already been APPROACHED by "uber-chic" companies that will obviously return when the economy rebounds. I'm sure you're unaware that Mandarin Oriental was supposed to go into the Grand Ave Project by the cultural "powerhouse" of the music center. As the Purple Line is extended to UCLA, the Regional Connector is completed, and the DTLA streetcar is finished, there is very little doubt that higher end retailers will enter into the market within the next ten years. Although there are plans possibly to build a flagship Nordstrom where you used to work at Century City coinciding with the subway connecting Century City, which is LA's second CBD.
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Originally Posted by delts145
Downtown Salt Lake's City Creek Center, with it's adj. uber chic ski resorts, Sundance, General Conferences and a major Convention Center accross the street, is bringing total visitors into it's core by the millions. The Downtown tourist trade will only increase by leaps and bounds over the next ten years. A large percentage of those people have upper class incomes, and demand a first class retail experience along with their exciting ski trip/convention visit.
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Do you have sources for ANY OF these claims?
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Originally Posted by delts145
For retailers, a booming Downtown Salt Lake City presents an opportunity to cash in on large seaonal spikes of visitors. These predictable events, such as the twice annual Outdoor Retailers Show, Sundance, and General Conferences twice annually, are akin to additional Christmas spikes. A Saks department store will come to Downtown Salt Lake just as surely as they came to Cherry Creek in Denver, or as surely as Major League Baseball or Football will come to Salt Lake.
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I'm glad because it will finally
catch up with the rest of the nation's prospering cities.
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Originally Posted by delts145
While Saks will probably close a few more of it's underperforming stores such as Portland, Downtown Salt Lake City will for a host of reasons, continue to build a glaringly needed niche for a Saks.
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I highly doubt that but only time will tell!