RETAIL : ‘Tis the Season for Opening of New Stores in County
Ah, autumn. In Orange County, the season’s arrival is not heralded by the rustle of falling leaves but by the bustle of stores opening for the Christmas shopping season.
Already, a few of this year’s crop are making their appearance. Among them:
* A new T.J. Maxx discount apparel store, part of the new Anaheim Hills Festival center due to open Oct. 11. It is part of a 450-store, nationwide chain that has thrived on the 1990s ideal of name-brand merchandise at slashed prices. It joins eight others in Orange County.
* An Impulse gift store at South Coast Plaza, which opened last month with a stock of electronic knickknacks and travel items. The store bills itself as “a good place to look for recently released technology.” Makes you wonder if they stock that Stealth fighter you always wanted. If they don’t, there’s always a Walkman.
* A Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse store, to open Oct. 15 at 7800 Edinger Ave. in Huntington Beach. Another discounter, the coat store is one of 171 that Burlington has across the country. The company decided to move in when it picked up the 50,000-square-foot building, across the street from Huntington Center mall, at a Resolution Trust Corp. foreclosure auction.
A typical Burlington store offers 10,000 to 20,000 coats from as many as 300 makers. That’s 10 times the number found in a typical department store. “We think Huntington Beach presents a great opportunity for Burlington Coat Factory,” said Monroe G. Milstein, chairman of the Burlington, N.J., chain.
You would think, though, that someone would have told him it never gets very cold in Orange County.
* Two new stores in the highly successful Tustin Market Place. They are Irene’s Jewelry and Discount Picture Mart, a low-priced framing shop. The center also added a carwash and a medical group that offered back-to-school physical examinations on “special” for $15, but that’s another story.
* The Pottery Barn opening this week at Crystal Court mall, that giant edifice next door to South Coast Plaza. The store is selling more than pottery, however, offering a range of home furnishings from lamps to rugs.
“Our customers are very interested in their homes, especially as a means of self expression,” said Glen Senk, senior vice president for the store’s parent company, Williams-Sonoma in San Francisco. In keeping with the season, the pottery barn will look positively autumnal with its fall colors.
With stores like this, who needs to mark the new season with leaves that change color?
