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November 20, 2002
News Specialist Keith McCord reporting
Nordstrom says it has studied all the options in the downtown
area, and believes leaving the Crossroads Mall is still the
best thing for business.
It's still not clear whether Nordstrom will leave downtown
Salt Lake City, but what is clear this afternoon: the company
does not want to stay at its present Main Street location.
Company representatives met with employees at the Crossroads
Store first thing this morning to give them the news.
Nordstrom has said all along that it wants to be right where
I'm standing -- on the north end of The Gateway.
Today, company officials from Seattle met with employees and
told them that all options were examined -- again.
"We told them what's been happening, that we took a hard
look at ZCMI, that we couldn't make it work and that we think
The Gateway is the best and most viable option that we have
left in town," says Brooke White, a spokesperson for
Nordstrom.
"For
us to be successful in the long run, we need to be surrounded
by a lot of strong retail, and that's what's at Gateway,"
she says.
Of the 83 stores in the Nordstrom chain, the Crossroads Store
ranks No. 83 in terms of revenue performance. The company
says it needs to make changes, which now means moving.
Last summer, company president Blake Nordstrom met with city
leaders and was asked not to give up on its current location.
So a national architectural consultant was brought in to study
both the Crossroads and ZCMI malls.
"None of us could find a reasonable solution that made
sense from a retail perspective," White says.
Nordstrom says The Gateway has a good retail mix of stores,
and has enough space to handle the size of store the company
now designs and builds.
But the current ordinance at The Gateway prohibits anchor-type
stores the size of Nordstrom. That was the original deal when
the project was built, and Mayor Rocky Anderson has supported
that all along, saying a deal is a deal.
"And the city doesn't just walk away from its agreements
and those that enter into agreements with the city simply
walk away from these agreements," Anderson says.
The mayor still believes it's possible to keep Nordstrom in
its Main Street location.
For months we've been talking about Nordstrom's relationship
with Salt Lake City, but Salt Lake County has a stake in all
this too.
County Mayor Nancy Workman says the word is out about Nordstrom
across the country. She says when she approaches other retailers
to consider relocating to Salt Lake, she gets negative reactions.
"All I get is, 'well, you're being negative toward Nordstrom,
what makes you think we'll be welcome? Why should we waste
our time?'" Workman says.
County Mayor Workman says she's going to be working the phones,
calling Anderson and others to work with Nordstrom and keep
them here.
Mayor Anderson says Crossroads is working on another proposal
to keep Nordstrom there.
And through it all, Nordstrom says, it would love to stay
here -- preferably at The Gateway.
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