Commercial – Nordstrom – Square Footage

Commercial – Nordstrom – Square Footage

NEW YORK, May 10 Nordstrom Inc (JWN.N) will open an off-price Rack store in Manhattan on Tuesday, but the upscale retailer’s president said he would have preferred its first presence in New York City to have been a full-service Nordstrom department store.

“Ideally, we’d be talking to you today about a full-line store and yet we haven’t had any ability to find a location there,” Blake Nordstrom told reporters on Monday on a preview tour of the store.

Nordstrom said the chain has long wanted a full department store in Manhattan, but has been unable to find a location in part because of the square-footage required.

“We’ve been looking for a number of years, but unfortunately we’re not close to anything. We’d like to be here,” he said.

Rack stores on average have 35,000 square feet of space. Nordstrom department stores are far larger, requiring space that is difficult to find in Manhattan in spite of a commercial real estate slump in recent years.

For example, the Nordstrom in nearby Short Hills, New Jersey has 188,000 square feet of space.

The store’s opening comes as key rivals such as Saks Inc SKS.N and Neiman Marcus Group Inc [NMRCUS.UL] expand their profitable off-price stores and Macy’s Inc’s (M.N) Bloomingdale’s chain gets ready to open its first outlets.