OKC hasn't sold chains on its strong points

[Larry OKC]

No of course the stats are correct, but I was just saying it's not THE reason.

My bad. When you said "That's not true swake", right after the numbers he cited, thought you were saying the numbers were wrong.

[HOT ROD]

ok, I found this interesting read from our friends up in Omaha: Trader Joe's plans Omaha store - Omaha.com

Kudos to Omaha for the great expansion in retail options they are having and improving their quality of life; This all - despite being so close to the much larger Kansas City.

Oklahoma City is much larger than Omaha but OKC does have to contend with spillage from Dallas (which is much larger than KC).

Nonetheless, OMA is succeeding: Is there anything we can learn from Omaha, besides offering a ton of money to hire away their retail marketing manager, Wendy Chapman.?

[betts]

I do know that the Anthropologie store in Omaha is one of their worst performers. And I also know that the lack of an adequate facility open until 9 p.m. is one of the reasons we're still not on the slate to have an Anthropologie store here. They don't like to put their stores in big malls. I've only been to Omaha once in the past ten years, but they had a beautiful open air shopping center when I was there. Perhaps that's the location Trader Joe's is going in.

Actually, it looks like they now have a lifestyle center, and that's where Trader Joe's is going: http://www.broadmoor.cc/community.asp?ID=4

[progressiveboy]

I do know that the Anthropologie store in Omaha is one of their worst performers. And I also know that the lack of an adequate facility open until 9 p.m. is one of the reasons we're still not on the slate to have an Anthropologie store here. They don't like to put their stores in big malls. I've only been to Omaha once in the past ten years, but they had a beautiful open air shopping center when I was there. Perhaps that's the location Trader Joe's is going in.

Actually, it looks like they now have a lifestyle center, and that's where Trader Joe's is going: One Pacific Place Apartments - Omaha, Nebraska - Broadmoor

Actually, they have an Anthropologie store in Northpark Mall in Dallas. This is a 'huge' mall with 5 dept stores and about 250 other stores. Omaha seems to get better retail sooner than OKC. It may be due to them having so many Fortune 500 insurance companies and seems to have a lot of white collar jobs.

[betts]

Anthropologie does have stores in malls, but they don't like to put them there. They like freestanding stores in lifestyle centers or outdoor malls. They've been to OKC, don't particularly want a store in Edmond and were considering Nichols Hills Plaza and Classen Curve. They have to stay open until 9, and there are no stores in Nichols Hills Plaza that do, and I think the store sizes and shapes in Classen Curve aren't really what they need. Yes, I've been to Northpark on many occasions, and I've shopped at Anthropologie there. But again, I also know that the Omaha Anthropologie store doesn't do that well in comparison to some of their other stores, so market research isn't everything. I'll be interested to see if Tulsa performs better than Omaha, and if we get a store, how we compare as well.

[metro]

ok, I found this interesting read from our friends up in Omaha: Trader Joe's plans Omaha store - Omaha.com

Kudos to Omaha for the great expansion in retail options they are having and improving their quality of life; This all - despite being so close to the much larger Kansas City.

Oklahoma City is much larger than Omaha but OKC does have to contend with spillage from Dallas (which is much larger than KC).

Nonetheless, OMA is succeeding: Is there anything we can learn from Omaha, besides offering a ton of money to hire away their retail marketing manager, Wendy Chapman.?

I say we hire Wendy Chapman, whomever is doing it here isn't cutting it from what we can tell. Seems like the leasing manager at Penn Square is doing better job than the person at the Chamber.

Actually, they have an Anthropologie store in Northpark Mall in Dallas. This is a 'huge' mall with 5 dept stores and about 250 other stores. Omaha seems to get better retail sooner than OKC. It may be due to them having so many Fortune 500 insurance companies and seems to have a lot of white collar jobs.

I do find it ironic that Omaha doesn't have a Macy's (where we have several), just got an Apple, J. Crew and Pottery Barn, all of which we've had for years. Also their Talbots closed while ours is thriving, as well as our J. Jill. It seems we have the ones they want and they have the ones we want, so Omaha isn't everything, they just have a good recruiter that is relentless and persistent. I wonder if our recruiter is persistent when we get shut down??


Sidenote: I just sent another email to Trader Joes about the Omaha news and how much more OKC could support one. I encourage everyone else to do so and flood them with emails. They have a form for location requests on their contact page.

[Larry OKC]

Have to remember Macy's being here is a result of them buying Foley's and probably wouldn't be here if they hadn't done that (some have pointed out the same thing about Whole Foods and Tulsa, they bought out a store that was already there and just rebranded). So my guess is Omaha didn't have a Foley's?

[metro]

They didn't just buy Foley's but other brands as well. So that means Omaha's department store selection was even less limited. Foley's was just regional.

[MikeOKC]

I think Betts point is that Anthropologie would like to come to Oklahoma City, but there is no current location that fits where they would want to locate a store.

This is same song, fourteenth verse. Same story. You can't fault a retail development person from the chamber for lack of many of these larger stores because there simply. isn't. any. place. for. them. to. go.

For whatever reason, other cities have stepped up and built nice lifestyle centers (some more than one) and we haven't. All we keep hearing from Tuscana is that it's coming but they're going to build the residential first. Other cities have developers who are without excuses and they build. When I see retailers signing on the bottom line and announced in the business section of The Oklahoman, I'll take Tuscana seriously.

You would think North OKC/Edmond would make a perfect location for a large lifestyle center. Maybe there's one on the boards and it hasn't been announced. I would like to think somebody is getting it done. There's too big of a hole that needs filling.

[metro]

Mike, so if that is the case, and I'd be willing to concede that as a good part of the problem, then why isn't the Chamber more heavily pressuring/attracting a developer to build such a development?

[BG918]

I think Betts point is that Anthropologie would like to come to Oklahoma City, but there is no current location that fits where they would want to locate a store.

This is same song, fourteenth verse. Same story. You can't fault a retail development person from the chamber for lack of many of these larger stores because there simply. isn't. any. place. for. them. to. go.

For whatever reason, other cities have stepped up and built nice lifestyle centers (some more than one) and we haven't. All we keep hearing from Tuscana is that it's coming but they're going to build the residential first. Other cities have developers who are without excuses and they build. When I see retailers signing on the bottom line and announced in the business section of The Oklahoman, I'll take Tuscana seriously.

You would think North OKC/Edmond would make a perfect location for a large lifestyle center. Maybe there's one on the boards and it hasn't been announced. I would like to think somebody is getting it done. There's too big of a hole that needs filling.

Bingo. They wouldn't be coming to Tulsa either but Harold's closing their Utica Square location opened up a vacancy. As I recall Penn Square, where Anthropologie would probably go, currently has no vacancies. There is a need either for an expansion of Penn Square or a new upscale lifestyle center which Classen Curve hopes to be.

And I am shocked Omaha is getting a Trader Joe's. That gives hope that other similar-sized and larger cities in the region will get one eventually.

[progressiveboy]

Bingo. They wouldn't be coming to Tulsa either but Harold's closing their Utica Square location opened up a vacancy. As I recall Penn Square, where Anthropologie would probably go, currently has no vacancies. There is a need either for an expansion of Penn Square or a new upscale lifestyle center which Classen Curve hopes to be.

And I am shocked Omaha is getting a Trader Joe's. That gives hope that other similar-sized and larger cities in the region will get one eventually.

I am not shocked at this at all! Omaha has several Fortune 500 companies and is very much a white collar city. See link below.


USATODAY.com - Omaha sprouts unlikely cash crop: Corporate titans

[Spartan]

I think Betts point is that Anthropologie would like to come to Oklahoma City, but there is no current location that fits where they would want to locate a store.

This is same song, fourteenth verse. Same story. You can't fault a retail development person from the chamber for lack of many of these larger stores because there simply. isn't. any. place. for. them. to. go.

For whatever reason, other cities have stepped up and built nice lifestyle centers (some more than one) and we haven't. All we keep hearing from Tuscana is that it's coming but they're going to build the residential first. Other cities have developers who are without excuses and they build. When I see retailers signing on the bottom line and announced in the business section of The Oklahoman, I'll take Tuscana seriously.

You would think North OKC/Edmond would make a perfect location for a large lifestyle center. Maybe there's one on the boards and it hasn't been announced. I would like to think somebody is getting it done. There's too big of a hole that needs filling.

This is what I've been thinking about:

We need the retail, period. But how do we get it downtown? If we can't get it downtown, do we give up, and push for lifestyle centers on the periphery which will be more likely to attract the stores? How do we balance this conundrum out?

The best I can think of is a lifestyle center somewhere between 23rd and I-44.. like Grant's former Crown Heights project that's now dead.

[BG918]

I am not shocked at this at all! Omaha has several Fortune 500 companies and is very much a white collar city. See link below.


USATODAY.com - Omaha sprouts unlikely cash crop: Corporate titans

More shocked that Omaha was selected over Kansas City with twice the population. Though KC has Cosentino's downtown which is just as good if not better than Trader Joe's, and they are a local business.

http://www.cosentinos.com/

Remember though Nebraska does not have the liquor laws we do that are not enticing to these types of stores.

[Shake2005]

More shocked that Omaha was selected over Kansas City with twice the population. Though KC has Cosentino's downtown which is just as good if not better than Trader Joe's, and they are a local business.

Cosentino's Market - Kansas City

Remember though Nebraska does not have the liquor laws we do that are not enticing to these types of stores.

The Kansas City metro also has three Whole Foods stores.

[Spartan]

The Kansas City metro also has three Whole Foods stores.

Omaha already has 1 Whole Foods. It's proportional.. OMA - 800,000k, KC - 2.1 mil.

[betts]

I don't know why we couldn't build a lifestyle center near downtown. Surely there is land in or adjacent to Core to Shore that would be no more expensive to purchase than land near Quail Springs Mall or outlying areas. That is precisely what would bring retail to downtown, as it would create a location for it, with built in customers. As someone here said, we don't have the big old buildings downtown that could be used for retail. Bricktown probably shouldn't have the kind of stores you have in a lifestyle center, but we could create an area designed for retail, and which would give us additional near downtown housing of precisely the kind that works in an urban area.

As far as developers go, unfortunately we didn't get a lifestyle center built before the bust, and money for developments is hard to get right now. Most of these cities already had them. But, were I the city and/or chamber, that's what I would be looking for right now, as that's where retailers we want like to locate.

Not sure Anthropologie wants to go in Penn Square Mall. I've never heard they'd considered it, regardless of available space.