Bloomingdale’s to Put West Coast Flagship Store in Beverly Hills

After more than a year of negotiations, Beverly Hills officials announced that they have reached an agreement to bring Bloomingdale’s West Coast flagship store to city-owned land on Beverly Drive.

City Manager Mark Scott and a representative of Federated Department Stores, which owns Bloomingdale’s, signed the non-binding letter of intent during a private meeting. No terms of the agreement were released, although Beverly Hills Mayor Vicki Reynolds said Tuesday that the City Council will air details of the deal during a Feb. 21 meeting.

Besides the city-owned site spanning the 200 block of North Beverly and North Canon drives, the retailer has purchased six adjacent parcels from private parties.

Beverly Hills has been wooing the ritzy New York retailer for more than a year. When Bloomingdale’s announced plans last June to open four stores in Southern California, Los Angeles was among the cities that tried to persuade it to build stores in the city. Last year, Bloomingdale’s presented Beverly Hills with plans and a model of the proposed 240,000-square-foot department store.

Bloomingdale’s has also said it plans to open a store in Orange County, but no date has yet been set. “I just don’t know,” Chairman Michael Gould said late last month. He said that he would like to open a store in South Coast Plaza, but that negotiations were continuing with the Segerstrom family, which owns the Costa Mesa shopping complex.

In March, 1994, upscale Barneys New York opened on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. The 125,000-square-foot store is only blocks from the proposed Bloomingdale’s site.