My apologies; the article is in this month's Philadelphia magazine. It may be posted on www.phillymag.com.

http://phillymag.com/shopping_style/...oppers_delight

Here is the article.

Hotel and apartment use is good and retail that is tourist friendly. Tourists don't need Target.....they have one at home.
I don't see that Target @ 8th & Market would need a parking garage either. If you had a car would you shop at 8th & Market and put your car in an expensive garage or drive to Front & Oregon and park for free? I think that is Target's problem in CC. They will be a target (no pun intended) for the underclass that already is across the street. People who will give them lots of shrinkage but won't spend alot including lots of young kids. Target can capture the audiance they want by ringing CC with car friendly stores which is what they have done. I have always thought this was the problem with so much retail that is not in Center City. If they locate close to CC in a car friendly enviroment the customers they want will find them and the undesireable customers won't.

Hey ChasingFoxes. Cute joke about Bloomingdales.....thanks for the laugh.

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Can’t we all just get a lawn?

Wow, I had pretty low expectations from that article, given its subject and the rag it's printed in. And the author only reinforced them in her first few paragraphs of I'm-from-New-Yorkism. But after that, it shaped up into a smart historical and economic argument about shopping in center city throughout the 20th century. Nicely done.

...I'd at least like to dream about Bloomingdales in CC---it has always been my favorite dept store, tho i have recently experienced extremely rude service at the Willow Grove location lately. maybe because i dont 'look" the right way, seeing as i've been mistaken with Alan Colmes several times (minus the elevated eyebrow)

EC-While I do miss the container store, we're a long ways from seeing them here. I say this b/c I used to work for them...CC is not in their demographic crosshairs. NYC is their only real urban environment-it was their first multi level store. NY was also chosen for the high disposable income, but is otherwise outside of their target demo, which is very much female, working mom suburban (wants to be urban), married, 80k yr HHI, drives an SUV, 1.5 kids, etc. Dallas TX based. They look for upscale strip locations with Starbucks and Pottery Barn already signed as the ideal recipe for success. At the time I left, NYC had recently opened and the buzz was originally that it was done to have the prestige of location and the brand positioning in the Northeast-I dont honestly think people knew how the ship would sail in NYC. (Sidebar: In NY metro, you're less prestigious/credible if you DONT have a NYC location, as opposed to here where we have to head to the burbs-dont get me started, dont even get me started.)

That said, I would not be surprised to see a TCS pop up in Cherry Hill or KOP-both of those places fall right into their crosshairs. They are (or they fancy themselves) destination retail, so they expect people to generally travel 30mins to a store. Add that to the fact that Phila is within range of both, and the fact that a good deal of their sales come from larger items where vehicle access is required, and CC is even less likely. Though I miss them, and would love to see TCS here.

The need for parking at 8th and Market is meaningless since there is already available parking at 8th and Chestnut across the street and highly visible and 80% of the people using the store wouldn't be bothering to drive to it... it would be predominately overflow from dissatisfied K-Mart shoppers further down in The Gallery and those using cars, busses and taxis to get to the South Phila Wal-mart [lotta people take a taxi to Wal-Mart, including me sometimes].

Considering that a subway concourse runs along the entire length of the building site and is now buried (and probably contaminated) by the parking lot above the hole... it would be a no brainer... least in my eyes... that most of the Target shoppers coming in the storefront are going to be from underground or on a bus.

I'm sure Target wouldn't want to build a store unless they had their own garage in the project, too. Fine with me if they want that. There is already a overabundance of parking on Arch and Market Streets... but what's wrong with even more parking? There's parking on the site now and it looks hideous. At least have something to hide all those jalopys people drive.

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Buh-bye.

The new Sephora will be on the 1600 block of Chestnut Street.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCiKCxfYqE

"If we can't learn from our mistakes, what's the point of making them!" ...my friend Richard.

"You are protected by the enormity of your stupidity." Mother to son Victor, in "Notorious"

This article was in another thread about CC retail. It is actually more interesting and informative than you would expect from "used-to-be-Philly Mag" http://phillymag.com/shopping_style/...oppers_delight

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xCiKCxfYqE

"If we can't learn from our mistakes, what's the point of making them!" ...my friend Richard.

"You are protected by the enormity of your stupidity." Mother to son Victor, in "Notorious"

is the sephora going in where pay/half is? i'm obsessed with figuring out where it's going and noticed the other day that they have an "all sales are final" sign in their window....