Forever 21 to Open Flagship in the Big Apple
Not every retailer is playing it conservatively during this recession.
Forever 21, the Los Angeles fast-fashion retailer that has grown by leaps and bounds every year, signed a 20-year lease to open a huge flagship store in New York’s Times Square.
The 90,000-square-foot emporium is in a stand-alone building at 1540 Broadway, formerly a Virgin Megastore. The flagship, to open in mid-2010, will be the largest store in the retailer’s more-than-400-store chain, which has generated about $1.5 billion in sales this year.
In the past, Forever 21’s business strategy has been to have smaller stores located in shopping malls. But the company, founded by Don Chang in 1984, is embarking on a bigger-box strategy.
One of its first locations to encompass a department-store model was its 40,000-square-foot store in Pasadena, Calif., which opened in 2006 in a former Saks Fifth Avenue structure off old Colorado Boulevard.
Christopher Lee, a senior vice president with Forever 21, said the flagship store will carry apparel and accessories for men, women and children. “It will be a full-blown department store. There are new categories we are going to come up with. We’re in the planning stage right now,” Lee said. “We’re trying to introduce the world to a new concept of what a department store is.” —Deborah Belgum
