Nordstrom to Open Fair Oaks Mall Store; Addition to Be Chain’s 4th Area Outlet

The Washington Post March 20, 1990 | Thomas Heath;Mark Potts Nordstrom Inc. has signed a letter of intent to open a store at Fair Oaks Mall in Fairfax-the fourth area store for the Seattle-based department store chain renowned for its service and selection.

“We’ve signed up,” Bruce Nordstrom, co-chairman of Nordstrom, said yesterday. He said the company plans to build a 180,000- to 200,000-square-foot store at the 1.4 million-square-foot regional shopping center, which is located at the intersection of Route 50 and Interstate 66 in western Fairfax County. The new store would be about the same size as the chain’s two existing Washington stores, at Tysons Corner Center and the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City. A fourth store, at Montgomery Mall, is under construction. here nordstrom promotion code

Nordstrom has said it plans to open a total of six or seven stores in the Washington-Baltimore area, and has one planned for Towson in addition to the four already open or announced for the Washington suburbs.

Nordstrom said the Fair Oaks store is scheduled to open in 1993. Pending county approval, construction is scheduled to begin late this year or early next year, according to a spokesman for Taubman Cos., which owns both Fair Oaks and one of its major tenants, Woodward & Lothrop.

The Nordstrom store will be located in a new wing of the mall, according to the Taubman spokesman, and the expansion will include new parking and space for several smaller stores. Taubman still is looking for a tenant for the mall’s Garfinckel’s store, which closed last week. Garfinckel’s lost its lease at Fair Oaks late last year after not meeting sales figures specified in its contract with the mall. That store is only about one-quarter the size of the planned Nordstrom store.

Landing Nordstrom is a coup for Fair Oaks, which has grown steadily more upscale in the decade since it opened. The growth in the mall-the area’s second largest shopping center after Tysons Corner Center-reflects the increasingly favorable demographics of the area: A recent Census Bureau report showed that Fairfax County has the seventh highest per capita county or city income in the nation, at $20,805. Fair Oaks also draws customers from increasingly affluent Loudoun and Prince William counties and Manassas.

Garry Curtis, manager of the retail bureau at the Greater Washington Board of Trade, said Nordstrom’s decision to go to Fair Oaks may damage the plans of more distant suburban malls currently on the drawing board, such as the Galleria at Fair Lakes and Dulles Town Center, by removing one possible tenant from those center’s lists. “It slows down anybody who’s trying to do a center one step farther out,” Curtis said. “It shows that retail expansion is going to continue to be existing centers, not new stuff.” The Taubman spokesman said his company, which last week opened a Nordstrom at a mall it owns in the San Francisco area, has been talking to Nordstrom about sites around the nation for four years, and is continuing talks with the chain about future stores. Taubman also owns the Lake Forest Mall in Gaithersburg, but the spokesman said he did not know if a Nordstrom was being contemplated for that center.

It was not clear yesterday what zoning approval, if any, Taubman and Nordstrom might need to expand Fair Oaks Mall. The Taubman spokesman said the original plans for the mall called for the addition of another department store at the site planned for Nordstrom. Officials at the Fairfax County Office of Comprehensive Planning said the mall is likely to need additional parking because of the expansion, but said they were not sure if any rezoning or amendment to the county’s comprehensive plan would be needed for the addition.

Nordstrom arrived in the Washington area with a splash two years ago, opening a store in Tysons Corner Center. That store had one of the most successful first years in retail history, grossing more than $100 million in revenue. Last year, the company added the store at Pentagon City, which retail sources said has had more modest results than the one at Tysons Corner. site nordstrom promotion code

In addition to Woodie’s, Fair Oaks’s major tenants include Hecht Co., Lord & Taylor, Sears and J.C. Penney stores. It also has about 200 smaller specialty stores. Retail industry sources said upscale stores such as Woodie’s and Lord & Taylor might be hurt most by competition from Nordstrom. But others at the mall might benefit from the additional traffic Nordstrom is likely to generate.

J. Warren Harris, Hecht’s chairman, said he viewed Nordstrom’s planned arrival at Fair Oaks as “probably great, if it helps as much as it has in Tysons.” Nordstrom’s biggest competition at Fair Oaks may come from itself. Most local retail observers believe the highly successful Tysons Corner store has lost business to the chain’s Pentagon City location, and the Fair Oaks and Montgomery Mall stores are likely to similarly harm both existing stores, experts said.

“It shows Nordstrom is feeling pretty strong, because that circuit-Tysons, Fair Oaks, Pentagon City and Montgomery Mall-splits up pretty much the same market,” Curtis said.

At the same time, however, local retailers say Nordstrom’s entry at Fair Oaks likely will recover business that that mall lost last year when Tysons Corner Center was expanded and the Galleria at Tysons II was opened.

Thomas Heath;Mark Potts