Nordstrom's second Twin Cities store expected to help Ridgedale

Minnetonka's Ridgedale has lagged behind its peers, but a new Nordstrom, a retailer that resonates with Minnesotans, is expected to reverse that trend.

September 27, 2015 at 3:52PM

As stockers plied the racks and shelves with mer­chan­dise in the new Nordstrom in Ridgedale Center last week, salespeople sat in groups of 10 to 12 dis­cuss­ing ways to de­light cus­tom­ers.

Shoe de­part­ment employees talked about keep­ing tis­sue and card­board clut­ter out of cus­tom­ers' sight. Cos­met­ics employees dis­cussed ways to ac­knowl­edge a wait­ing cus­tom­er while help­ing an­oth­er guest. Flip charts with hand­writ­ten words such as "real," "hon­est," "com­fort­a­ble," "genu­ine" and "re­spect" were placed near each group.

It's but a glimpse behind the cur­tain of a spe­cial­ty re­tail­er prized for its qual­i­ty mer­chan­dise but es­pe­cial­ly for treat­ing its cus­tom­ers like roy­al­ty.

The Se­at­tle-based re­tail­er, which has been in the Twin Cities at the Mall of America since it op­ened in 1992, is a crown jewel for any mall. Its open­ing at Ridgedale this week is a turn­ing point af­ter near­ly three years of re­con­struc­tion at the mall in Minnetonka.

"It's a home run for Ridgedale," said Mar­tin Sneider, ad­junct pro­fes­sor of mar­ket­ing at Washington University in St. Louis. "They're ap­peal­ing to the Mid­west­ern cus­tom­er who wants great cus­tom­er serv­ice and good brands in a nice set­ting."

Nordstrom oc­cu­pies a new build­ing in a spot where Macy's ran a men's and home store. Af­ter clos­ing that, Macy's add­ed more than 80,000 feet to its main store in Ridgedale.

Nordstrom's new store is 140,000 square feet, about two-thirds the size of its Mall of America store. And un­like that lo­ca­tion, the new store has win­dows, bring­ing nat­u­ral light to its sleek, white in­te­ri­or. And from the out­side at night, the win­dows show off what's in­side and dis­tin­guish the store from the plain walls of the rest of the mall.

Along with some lux­u­ry brand bou­tiques in the Gal­ler­ia in Edina, Nordstrom is one of the most ex­pen­sive places to shop in the Twin Cities. But it has sur­vived in a mar­ket where Nei­man Mar­cus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloo­ming­dale's didn't, in part by mov­ing into the sweet spot for cus­tom­er serv­ice long oc­cu­pied by Minnesota's be­lov­ed Dayton's, which, through a suc­ces­sion of deals, be­came part of Macy's.

Erik Nordstrom, great-grand­son of Nordstrom's found­er and now co-pres­i­dent of the com­pany with his two bro­thers, re­calls com­pet­ing with Dayton's at the open­ing of the Mall of America store, which he man­aged for three years.

"That was good for us," Nordstrom said. "We need to have that same fo­cus on each cus­tom­er in Ridgedale. A big part of the serv­ice busi­ness is hu­mil­i­ty and learn­ing to lis­ten to the cus­tom­er."

Lux­u­ry re­tail an­a­lyst Pam Dan­zig­er of U­ni­ty Mar­ket­ing in Penn­syl­vania said that Nordstrom ap­peals to mid­dle-in­come and af­flu­ent shop­pers. "Nordstrom is the more demo­crat­ic of the brands," she said. "Nord­strom isn't e­lit­ist. They hit pre­mium price points but not lux­u­ry price points."

Nei­man Mar­cus, based in Dal­las, is per­ceived as Texas oil mon­ey. Saks is all about 5th Avenue, Wall Street and New York. Nordstrom, mean­while, sprung up from a hum­ble shoe store in Se­at­tle in 1901. Like Dayton's, Nordstrom fits Minnesota's sen­si­bili­ties, said Beth Perro-Jarvis of Gin­ger Con­sult­ing.

"Time­less, nice and prac­ti­cal," she said. "They have open­ing price points for mid-level shop­pers, but can just as eas­i­ly satis­fy the Ma­ple Grove shop­per who may not look the part but has a Bur­berry scarf and wal­let and a se­cond home on Gull Lake."

Nordstrom said the com­pany aims high in its level of mer­chan­dise and serv­ice and wide in the peo­ple it wants to reach.

"We need to feel wel­com­ing to all. We have great de­sign­ers and ac­ces­si­ble price points." Nordstrom said. "Lux­u­ry in­stills a sense of ex­clu­sivi­ty. We're not a lux­u­ry re­tail­er."

The Mall of America store is "one of our best per­form­ing stores by any meas­ure," Nord­strom said. The Ridgedale store will be the com­pany's 120th de­part­ment store, along with 188 Rack out­let stores by Thursday, in­clud­ing lo­ca­tions in Mall of America, Ma­ple Grove and St. Louis Park.

In part be­cause it is two stor­ies in­stead of three, the new Ridgedale store will be a dif­fer­ent ex­peri­ence than the one at the Mall of America. "It's easi­er to shop through­out the store and dis­cover new de­part­ments and brands cus­tom­ers may not have shopped be­fore," said Steph­a­nie Johnson, who is man­ag­ing the new store.

While brands such as Ash­ley Graham lin­ge­rie and Pen­field for young men will be ex­clu­sive to Ridgedale, well-heeled shop­pers used to trip­ping through Pra­da and Cha­nel bou­tiques in Mall of America won't find such de­sign­er ap­par­el in Ridgedale. "We had to make some de­ci­sions about the best way to use that [small­er] space," Johnson said. "We're also deal­ing with lim­its de­sign­ers place on the dis­tri­bu­tion of their pro­ducts."

Even if Nordstrom want­ed a Cha­nel bou­tique in Ridgedale, the de­sign house may have nixed it. "Cha­nel is very care­ful about the num­ber and place­ment of its prod­uct," said Sneider, the mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sor. "Mall of America and Macy's in Herald Square bring an in­flux of tour­ists. Ridgedale might not at­tract that many."

In­i­tial­ly, the Nordstrom store at the Mall of America didn't car­ry the ultraluxury brands. It's pos­si­ble the as­sort­ment at the new store in Ridgedale could change based on cus­tom­er de­mand. Johnson said that cus­tom­ers can ask salespeople to bring de­sign­er pro­ducts into the Ridgedale store.

Pam Olson of How­ard Lake, who was shop­ping at Ridgedale last week, said she's very ex­cit­ed about Nord­strom but had al­read­y heard rumors about the midlevel as­sort­ment. "Ridgedale is my clothes clos­et," Olson said. "I hope I can find brands like Di­ane von Fur­sten­berg or Catherine Malandrino."

Ana­lysts say that when Nordstrom en­ters a mall, other re­tail­ers flock to be near it. Since Ridgedale signed up Nordstrom two years ago, more than 20 re­tail­ers have signed leas­es, in­clud­ing Pot­ter­y Barn, Williams-So­no­ma, Brooks Brothers, Tommy Bahama, Michael Kors and Cre­a­tive Kidstuff.

Dave Bren­nan, co-di­rec­tor of the Institute for Re­tail­ing Excellence at the University of St. Thomas, said that Ridgedale was a tired cen­ter be­fore sign­ing Nordstrom in early 2013. "Five or six years ago they were going to do a ma­jor re­model, but General Growth went through bank­rupt­cy and it nev­er hap­pened," he said. "Bring­ing in Nordstrom is in­cred­i­ble good for­tune."

General Growth, the mall's own­er, doesn't re­lease sales per square foot at its centers. Dick Grones, prin­ci­pal of Cambridge Com­mer­cial Re­al­ty in Edina, es­ti­mates that Ridgedale's is in the low $400s, well be­low the $704 per square foot that the Mall of America gets and the $600 per square foot at Rose­dale. Grones said he ex­pects sales to "in­crease more than $150 per square foot with­in two years af­ter Nordstrom opens."

Pady Reg­nier is one local store own­er who want­ed to get into Ridgedale as soon as she heard about Nordstrom. Her Up­town Minnesota store also opens there this week. "I wouldn't have op­ened Up­town and tak­en over the Swarovski store in Ridgedale if I didn't know Nordstrom was going there," she said.

"We're try­ing to cre­ate an emo­tio­nal con­nec­tion with a cus­tom­er that oth­er re­tail­ers don't have," Reg­nier said. "Nordstrom is like that, too. They're not a com­mod­i­ty."

John Ewoldt • 612-673-7633


A worker puts up a sign over the door at the new Nordstrom store at Ridgedale in Minnetonka.
A worker puts up a sign over the door at the new Nordstrom store at Ridgedale in Minnetonka. (Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Training new associates at the new Nordstrom Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2.
Final preparations: Clockwise from top, workers were stocking the racks at the Top Shop store inside Nordstrom in Ridgedale; signs were being put up, and new sales associates received training in the women’s shoe department. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Nordstrom and Macy's at Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2.
Nordstrom and Macy's at Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Nordstrom and Macy's at Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2.
Nordstrom and Macy's at Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Corinne Arroyo arranged a display of Marc Jacobs handbags at the new Nordstrom Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2.
Ready for the reveal: Clockwise from top, Corinne Arroyo arranged a display of Marc Jacobs handbags at the new Nordstrom Ridgedale; the 140,000-square-foot store has natural lighting inside; sales associates were trained in the women’s shoe department, and workers arranged displays in the Mac Cosmetics shop, which features an area where shoppers can test products, with or without a clerk’s help. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
New associates in a training session in the women's shoe department at the new Nordstrom Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2.
New associates in a training session in the women's shoe department at the new Nordstrom Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Workers from MAC Cosmetics arranged the display at the new Nordstrom open cosmetics section, Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2.
Workers from MAC Cosmetics arranged the display at the new Nordstrom open cosmetics section, Ridgedale, Minnetonka. ] GLEN STUBBE * gstubbe@startribune.com Tuesday September 22, 2015 Nordstrom will open its second Twin Cities' dept. store in Ridgedale on Oct. 2. (The Minnesota Star Tribune)

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