 
Iaintgotnostyle
Member
Username: Iaintgotnostyle
Post Number: 182
Registered: 10-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 4:55 pm: |    |
Make it an old world type of dept store like the old hudson's , Wannamakers and Im in. |
Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed
Post Number: 1481
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 5:26 pm: | |
quote:wasn't macy's considering closing the Michigan Ave store in chicago due to poor sales compared to the suburban mall stores?
No, that would be the State Street store about a mile away (the original flagship Field's store), but that may be more caused by many Chicagoans boycotting the store due to the way Macy's swooped in and removed all traces of Field's. |
Urbanpioneer
Member
Username: Urbanpioneer
Post Number: 9
Registered: 10-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 5:43 pm: | |
I live in Detroit and despite the lack of any major retail or grocery store, I probably do 80 percent of my shopping in the city. I'd love it if there were a Target or Macy's or something else that when I go required me to drive 15 miles to Dearborn, but I don't think it's going to happen, although there is a plan for a JCPenney at Woodward and Eight Mile. Here's why:
1. Like it or not, stores in Detroit _ and the ring suburbs to a lesser extent _ do have severe theft problems. There was a Marshall's in the city several years ago but one reason they shut down was the retail loss issue plus the added cost of security guards.
2. Do MOST Detroit residents realy want or need a major retailer? There is this knock that Detroit has too many dollar stores, beauty supply stores, small grocery stores and other low-cost retail retail outlets. But aren't they here because that is the retail the economy supports? I think SOME want these retailers, but it's not the majority. Look at Merchant's row or any of the new condo developments. Very few retail was ever there or can stay there. Look at Harbortown. Aren't half those storefronts vacant? The inverse is Kercheval in Grosse Pointe _ I hope that's the right street _ loaded with tiny specialty shops. They dont' have a major retailer either, but they have the small stores the community supports and wants.
3. Retail shopping in general. I can think of no study that backs this up, but even in many of the suburbs, residents still seem to drive substantial distances to do their shopping ... especially if it's to get to a Meijer or Target or other big box store with cheap prices or major department store. So when Detroiters gripe there is no store nearby, that is true, but isn't that becoming more and more true where anyone lives? People WANT to live away from retail and in their isolated housing development and are willing to drive to shop. It's a myth to write "towns like Howell support a Target." Howell is not what's supporting Target; it's the surrounding community. |
Gnome
Member
Username: Gnome
Post Number: 382
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 5:48 pm: | |
When was the last time anyone here went to a Department store and spent 4 hours shopping?
That's what folks use to do at the old Hudsons and at Fields. Shopping was an all day affair.
Anybody do that now? Anybody get dressed up to go shopping? |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 10787
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 5:53 pm: | |
quote:Anybody get dressed up to go shopping?
I do everytime I shop. You'd be amazed at how pissed the security guards and tellers get if you show up at a store with no pants. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 5749
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 6:09 pm: | |
It really is too bad that downtown cannot currently support more retail.
As has been stated, people from Toronto are going by the busloads to Buffalo (more than likely to suburban malls).
It would have been nice to package Detroit to folks from Windsor/London Ontario and all points nearby, as a destination with entertainment, gaming and shopping in downtown Detroit.
I always thought that the People Mover should have been marketed as a shopping destination with stores clustered around the PM stops (such as the RenCen, Millender Center, Greektown, and even the 4 story arcade at the Whitney Building... plus shopping along Woodward and Washington Blvd. And the PM tokens were given to customers by retailers along the way.
It's just that Detroit is missing out on an opportunity, what with the strong Canadian dollar... |
Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 644
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 6:14 pm: | |
"Anybody do that now? Anybody get dressed up to go shopping?"
Back in that day, society was more formal with their image. Ever since the 80s, people stopped caring about any of that. So no matter what type of store you have or what type of neighborhood or downtown you have, people just aren't as formal anymore. |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 2804
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 6:23 pm: | |
I remember going to Hudson's and even Sears at Macomb Mall and it being all day including lunch and sometime an early breakfast at the store. The store restaurant would be very busy! |
401don
Member
Username: 401don
Post Number: 27
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 6:27 pm: | |
It's "no shirt, no shoes, no service." Pants should be optional. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 5751
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 6:30 pm: | |
Hey Bobj... are you sure it wasn't Eastland? 
The Hudson's part kind of gave it away... (4th floor restaurant at Eastland with neighboring gourmet food store)... cuz there was no Hudson's at Macomb Mall!
Or were you ambiguously referring to a different Hudson's?
(Message edited by Gistok on November 14, 2007) |
Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 647
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 6:33 pm: | |
^^^He probably did. He just said the Sears a Macomb Mall. However, there wasn't a Sears at Eastland before 2003. |
Craig
Member
Username: Craig
Post Number: 440
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 7:30 pm: | |
Department store? How about start with a drugstore that dosn't close at sundown? |
Dabirch
Member
Username: Dabirch
Post Number: 2470
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 7:41 pm: | |
quote{Hey Bobj... are you sure it wasn't Eastland? }
You know if you just put a comma after "Hudson's" and then after "mall" it makes perfect sense.
Have you ever tried to read something contextually? |
Dabirch
Member
Username: Dabirch
Post Number: 2471
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 7:43 pm: | |
quote:Hey Bobj... are you sure it wasn't Eastland?
quote:^^^He probably did. He just said the Sears a Macomb Mall. However, there wasn't a Sears at Eastland before 2003.
You know if you just put a comma after "Hudson's" and then after "mall" it makes perfect sense.
Have you ever even tried to read something contextually? |
Parkguy
Member
Username: Parkguy
Post Number: 146
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 8:04 pm: | |
Please don't confuse Target with a department store. It is a big box discount store, and that is not the same thing. Don't get me wrong, I like Target, but it isn't Hudson's. No one is going to make a downtown Target a shopping destination.
If you look at Detroit retailing from, say, 1950, at the city's peak population, you'd find Hudson's, Kern's, Federal, Crowley-Milner, along with major national chains located OUTSIDE of downtown, like Sears-Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, and J.C. Penney. Then there were the locally-owned chains like Hughes & Hatcher, Harry Sufrin, Peoples' Outfitters, and Himmelhoch's. There were also neighborhood department stores that had grown to respectable size, like Muirhead's in Dearborn or Mulholland's in Wayne. Every one of those old, successful department stores or specialty retailers IS GONE, except for Sears and Penney's, and they're having a rough time of it. It wasn't the decline of Downtown that killed those retailers, it was a major change in the nature of the business itself. That's even the case for large, big-box grocery stores. It is all about volume and just-in-time shipping, so they all want to locate on high-volume highways or at freeway exits in the middle of gigantic parking lots. All IKEA stores are like that, too. (Even the new Brooklyn store is near the Brooklyn-Queens expressway and the Prospect expressway.)
So, it will be the mom and pop and boutique stores that offer things you can't find in a big box that will make retail in Detroit succeed, and those will be the things that people will come into the city to find. Unique stores, unique places to eat, and unique experiences-- you won't find them in a chain or a big box. And, people won't drive to a shopping location if they find one store, then 200 feet of parking lot, then cross the street, pass another parking lot, then find two stores, then a parking lot...
The best neighborhoods I've ever walked through have been loaded with lots of 20-foot wide storefronts, one after the other. I totally understand FocusontheD's parents' reaction to great mom and pop places in his neighborhood. |
321brian
Member
Username: 321brian
Post Number: 502
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 9:03 pm: | |
i think something like ikea is the best idea.
it has to be a store that has only one location in the area.
cabelas would have been something similar. |
Scottr
Member
Username: Scottr
Post Number: 822
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 9:07 pm: | |
quote:Detroit needs to really awaken its entrepreneurial spirit once more. Look at Detroit's past. The Detroit of the past had people who opened up there own shop and didn't wait for big names. So when the stores like Hudson's Crowleys, & Kresge's were small stores, eventually they became big names.
This is not a quality limited to Detroit. Every major city had their own department store, or two. Before the communications and travel options we have now, there were few 'big names' like we have today, so there really wasn't anything to wait for. None of those stores started off as the department stores (or in Kresge's case, discount superstores) that they are now, and took years to get to what we know (or remember) them as. And neither Crowley's nor Hudson's ever became big names on the national scene, they were only regional. Today if we're looking for something fairly big, the only way to really go is a national chain like Penneys, Macy's, Target, etc., or they simply won't be able to compete with those stores.
Parkguy - Penney's has actually done quite well the last few years, after a rough patch around 2000-2001, and is opening up a ton of new stores (there's 3 new stores and a relocation/expansion in Michigan alone early next year). However, I don't foresee them opening up many downtown stores, they generally prefer single-story stand-alone stores these days, with plenty of parking. however, i wouldn't rule out the possibility entirely, the fact that they prefer standalone could also mean that they won't rule out downtown because it's not a mall. |
Scottr
Member
Username: Scottr
Post Number: 823
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 9:30 pm: | |
Out of curiosity, does anyone have any demographics for downtown? I'm wondering how they compare to those around the 8 Mile/Woodward development:
quote:Demographics within an eight-minute drive of the mall.
# Population: 253,161
# Households: 100,011
# Median housing value: $114,973
# Median age: 35.8
# Average household income: $56,208
# Daytime employment: 110,934 |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 5753
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 9:52 pm: | |
LOL at our grammarian Dabirch... ya ought to see someone about those stuttering posts!
Since Bobj and I know each other... oh nevermind... it's an inside joke...
(Message edited by Gistok on November 14, 2007) |
Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 653
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 9:56 pm: | |
I don't think Downtown could support a department store. Even with all the parking, many suburbanites I'm sure wouldn't make the long trip past other stores (with all the Xenophobia and things) unless this particular department store in DD is unique in some way (like Hudson's was). Besides, even during the 9-5, besides the bus riders, Downtown is still a relative ghost haven. Everyone's hiding in their nice, warm buildings, then RUN to the garage and fly up Gratiot, Jefferson, or Woodward to their suburban home and hide in there. |
Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 654
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 10:00 pm: | |
However, (with Save-A-Lot and Aldi's expanding across the city), I can see them monitoring downtown for further expansion. There are more than enough people down there (let's say if they built somewhere just outside Downtown near Brush Park or the Cass Corridor) to support them. |
Scottr
Member
Username: Scottr
Post Number: 825
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 10:11 pm: | |
quote:Even with all the parking, many suburbanites I'm sure wouldn't make the long trip past other stores
Why does a store in downtown Detroit need to depend on suburbanites? We're not talking a department store on the old Hudson's scale (there just aren't many of them around anymore anywhere), we're talking something around 100,000 sqft, maybe 150,000 at most. It seems to me there may very well be enough residents in the area to support one, or there will be in the next 5 years. |
Kslice
Member
Username: Kslice
Post Number: 217
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 11:00 pm: | |
Macy's in Chicago is a perfect example of a our department store would need to be. First, they have WAY more selection than any Macy's in a mall. And second, they have smaller, more upscale businesses inside the main store.
I think a department store would do well if they have a big selection, things in all price ranges, and smaller shops in and around it to support it.
I hope Quicken takes the Statler site so we can use the Hudson site to bring some shopping back to the city! |
Genesyxx
Member
Username: Genesyxx
Post Number: 810
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 8:30 am: | |
I agree that we need to support the existing retail, how few of them it may be, but still you're missing the bigger picture.
With the growing rate of tourists coming into our fair city, its hard to keep them coming back without something more to bring to the table. Keep in mind, this isn't just a downtown problem, its a CITY problem. Hopefully, the Tiger Stadium project will be a catalyst for shopping in the area. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 741
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 8:32 am: | |
Downtown Detroit for sure can support retail. You have over 100,000 people downtown each weekday. That is enough right there to support some sort of retail. |
Bobj
Member
Username: Bobj
Post Number: 2809
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 9:20 am: | |
More retail yes, a mall of any major size - no |
Rb336
Member
Username: Rb336
Post Number: 3588
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 9:21 am: | |
I wasn't particularly impressed with macy's in chicago. a sorry shadow of THE macy's.
Maybe we could build a vertical mall like they have in manhattan? |
Mind_field
Member
Username: Mind_field
Post Number: 812
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 9:48 am: | |
Downtown Detroit needs a Harrod's. That is London's, as in that booming world city in England, flagship department store I believe. If they opened a huge department store downtown, and had only that one store in the entire region, I believe it would be outrageously successful. |
Iaintgotnostyle
Member
Username: Iaintgotnostyle
Post Number: 192
Registered: 10-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 12:13 pm: | |
"Maybe we could build a vertical mall like they have in manhattan?"
defunct , only a few stores left in there |
Warrenite84
Member
Username: Warrenite84
Post Number: 168
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 1:26 pm: | |
The likelihood of a downtown mall or at least much enhanced shopping choices will occur when a coherent light rail transit system is implemented. Hopefully soon. |