juniper

Ok. They decided to open the deck back up today. I guess things weren't as bad as initially feared.

Apparently the woman had a heart attack, causing her to hit the gas. She died on the way to the hospital. They had engineers here all day yesterday and say all levels of the deck may be cordoned off for a few months.

Emerson Joseph is a men's salon. I don't think they've opened yet.

The store is doing well. With NM we don't need a lot of traffic in order to make our numbers.

Winter 2008 must mean January 2008 as last I saw they were hiring.

Actually Belk at Southpark carries quite a bit of her clothing line. Also they did have some jewelry.

Yeah, we have Escada at NM.

If I may play devil's advocate, what about Barneys? When I worked for Dillards I often said that Dillards should move out to make room for Saks (and other retailers). I think their renovations, though a last-ditch effort to gain (or at least stop losing) market share, will keep them in the mall for now, though it could be an option down the road. As Steven said Saks is doing much better as a company as of late. Also, to repeat him, it's going to take a lot for a Bloomingdale's to come to Charlotte. It's very unlikely actually, though Atlanta does have a pair.

Yes, you're certainly correct. I meant that it wasn't a selling point for me. It's unfortunate that in most mediums that the worst representatives are extremely popular. Perhaps I'm just an elitist though.

Yes, I realize that. But that's not a selling point.

I went to H&M for the first time on a recent trip to San Francisco. I was excited because I've heard some good things about it, but the fabric is so bad and everything is so ugly and poorly made.

Yeah, that's what I meant of course. A/X is not appealing at all. No one looks at A/X and thinks "European and sophisticated."

A/X is very much a glorified version of the Gap. The designs are horrible -- everything has a/x plastered all over it -- and the quality is crap. Armani has nothing to do with the line except lending his name to it. Though we do get a couple people a month asking if we carry it at NM.

BTW, went to Design within Reach. Beautiful stuff (I would kill for a Le Corbu chair), but the store's name begs the question as to whose reach their design is within--it's certainly not in mine. Pricey!!

Why does everyone want a Rain Forest Cafe? The food isn't very good and it's amazingly overpriced.

i don't remember if this was said previously, but design within reach has been open for about a week and a half. they've got some really great pieces.

the new barnes and noble will probably have one too.

There's a mcdonalds across the road. It's just making a poor food court poorer. From a mall employee's standpoint I'm glad I get a discount at Mccormicks.

if anyone is interested, i work at nm now in the men's department, so i'd be happy to help anyone out if they come in there. oh, my name is scott.

The thing about Macy's is that their stores are not consistent countrywide. Sure, places like Saks and NM have different tiers which are governed by a city's demographics, but their goals are much different than Macy's (or Belk for that matter). Macy's West stores are much different than those on the east coast. Certainly a Bloomingdale's in Charlotte will be different from the one in New York -- or the one in Atlanta even -- but it is still seen as Federated's upscale store, whereas Macy's is a behemoth that they will throw done anywhere.

Dillard's will continue at SouthPark if only because they have the top salesperson for all Dillard's. Dillard's definitely has a lot of money as a company, enough money that they can afford to renovate underperforming, marginally profitable (if even that) stores in a vastly overperforming mall as in SouthPark's case. Unfortunately they have not, as yet, updated their selection (save for bringing in that three truths line). They have a Polo department that doesn't even carry cashmere sweaters in a mall where another anchor's Polo department does close to $2 million. Dillard's, in a way to combat their poor sales recently, has focussed more on private labels and such. They are much less interested in moving designer apparel because there is more profit to be had in the private labels. These labels for the most part do not bring in the customer, certainly not the high-end customer. Just because some people see Dillard's as an upmarket retailer doesn't mean it is. Because of the way Dillard's buys, customers are trained to know that they can wait for almost any item to go to at least 50% (sometimes 75%) before purchasing.

I said they see themselves as fashion leaders because in some of their financial reports they label themselves as such. It's certainly true that they are very conservative, but that's not at all how they view themselves. i think overall management is pretty ignorant of their struggles. It is certainly like this at SouthPark where the majority of employees see their wages declining every few months from lack of sales while management blames them for not "talking to people in the food court and bringing them back to the store." I know before the renovation they were not even breaking even, and there doesn't seem to be anyone shopping when I've gone in recently. I half-expected Simon to force them out of the mall but I imagine their relationship is pretty solid as Dillards is pretty omnipresent.

I worked at Dillards right before the renovations started so upon moving back to Charlotte this month I was eager to see how it's changed. I had a lot of former coworkers telling me that I had to check it out, it was so beautiful, et cetera, but to me they haven't done enough to change the Dillards template. It's nicer for sure but it still has that claustrophic, 70s look. I have been to enough of their stores (Atlanta and Nashville have the same look) to know how pervasive this is but I think they could have really done a lot more. Dillards likes to talk a lot about how they are fashion leaders but it never seems to be the case walking into their stores. I really like Billy Reid. I talked to Jeremy, the director of stores, while I was there. The clothing is really nice, sort of a combination between Paul Smith and John Varvatos, and the prices aren't that bad. I haven't purchased anything yet but I will soon. Of the half a dozen times or so I've been to the mall this month Hermes has only been open once. I've yet to go in. I had an interview yesterday at Neiman Marcus. Hopefully I'll hear good news from them soon.

I'm surprised SouthPark doesn't have a Club Monaco yet.

That's interesting. My wife, who worked for BSS up until recently, vaguely remembered this. Concord Mills is now smaller than SouthPark, but I'm not sure of the exact size.