FAO Store Reopens With Eye-Catching Toys, Prices

Perhaps the best way to judge the excitement building Tuesday for the opening of a newly expanded FAO Schwarz toy store at South Coast Plaza was to count the number of noses pressed to the glass. There were many.

Few could resist a peek at the big stuffed lions and giraffes staring back at them through the window as workers readied the store for its opening today. Some stopped for a glimpse at the miniature red BMW with Babar the Elephant behind the wheel, or the giant talking moon face that will greet shoppers.

The goal, explained an exuberant FAO Schwarz President Peter L. Harris, is to go beyond being the pre-eminent name in toy retailing and create a giant retailing fantasy land that no kid--or parent--can resist.

“We really have gone far out to create the ultimate experience of music, color and animation,” Harris said as he bounced between displays to show off some of the latest toys. “It’s not just a box with merchandise. The store itself is a plaything.”

The South Coast Plaza store is the last of FAO’s 16 U.S. stores to receive a face lift in a program that began when the flagship store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue moved across the street and was redone. Harris said the Orange County toy shop has been such a success that he wanted to tinker with ideas in other FAO stores before incorporating the best of them.

For starters, FAO Schwarz has moved to a location with one-third more display space than its former location. The new store is near the Carousel Court and next door to the Disney store.

When browsers drift past the giant building block entrance and into the store, the big happy moon face with twitching eyes will detect their presence and greet them with a cheerful: “Welcome to fun, to happiness, to FAO’s World of Toys!”

To their right will be mounds of giant stuffed animals with giant price tags to match. To their left, strollers will find a sea of dolls and stacks of board games and video screens displaying Nintendo games.

A special FAO Schwarz song plays over and over to set the theme for the store. A talking five-foot robot will converse with youngsters, who can also squeal at the sight of an acrobatic monkey doll wheeling across a 30-foot-long high wire.

Harris, a native Californian who once headed the new defunct Gemco department store chain, said the store will maintain its distinctive inventory and services that make FAO Schwarz “the Tiffany of toy stores.”

The chain, for instance, was first to sell a new Sony Corp. toy that allows children to electronically sketch pictures that can be transferred to a TV screen, he said. For Christmas, the store will stock a special collectors’ edition of a Barbie doll dressed in a blue satin gown.

The larger store isn’t trying to be an upscale version of toy supermarkets such as Toys R Us, Harris said. Unlike the typical Toys R Us shopper, FAO customers usually arrive at the store without knowing what they want to buy but expecting to find the unique. To help affluent working parents, the store offers such service as telephone ordering and same-day delivery.

Harris said he expects sales at the new South Coast Plaza store to be double what they were at its former location.