Copley Place

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Costly styles in all aisles: Copley casts off commonplace
By Donna Goodison
Monday, January 15, 2007 - Updated: 07:25 AM EST


Copley Place is upping its fashion quotient.

The upscale Boston mall is rolling out the red carpet to more luxury brands, such as Salvatore Ferragamo and jeweler David Yurman, while bidding adieu to mass-market retailers.

Copley Place scored a fashion coup when a two-story Barneys New York opened there in March, taking the place of a former multiplex movie theater. Jimmy Choo?s shoe mecca followed, joining the likes of Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Coach and longtime Copley Place tenant Neiman Marcus.

Now Copley Place management is setting a new fashion statement - ridding the mall of less desirable stores, by not renewing their leases, to make way for more exclusive ones.

The last day for mid-market women?s shoe store Bandolino is tomorrow.
?We?ve been trying to renew our lease for two years, and they wouldn?t let us,? store manager Andrea Arcanti said, as shoppers looked through the last remaining boxes of shoes at a 60 percent-off sale.

The store, owned by the same parent company as Barneys, has been at Copley Place for 10-plus years and is one of the top three producing locations in the chain, according to Arcanti.

?I have a huge customer base with the women at the offices upstairs,? she said. ?We cater to a lot of working women in the area.?

Copley Place?s leasing fact sheet describes the mall as the epicenter for high-income professionals, convention delegates, sophisticated tourists and affluent shoppers. Mall management wouldn?t talk to the Herald, but owner Simon Property Group did release a statement about its re-merchandising efforts.

Simon Property said it is ?committed to providing an exceptional shopping experience that is unparalleled in the region.?

?That commitment includes constant review of our mix of retailers and maintaining a dialogue with some of the top names in the industry, many of whom seek out Copley Place as their exclusive location in the market or as a point of entry into the U.S. retail scene, the statement said, adding the mall has received ?very positive feedback? from shoppers about changes to its retail offerings in the past two years.

So who else is out? The Walking Co., GNC (General Nutrition Center), EB Games, Elle Style, 57 Sheffield, Watch World and Bebe left at the end of last month. Godiva Chocolatier is moving to a temporary kiosk before relocating to the Shops at Prudential Center, and Borders Group Inc. decided to close its Brentano?s bookstore.

Incoming are BCBG and David Yurman, whose high-end jewelry won him an expansive department at the new Bloomingdale?s in the Mall at Chestnut Hill. The standalone Yurman store will open in April on the first floor of Copley Place, according to the company?s Web site.

Salvatore Ferragamo will open a luxury 3,200-square-foot men?s and women?s boutique on July 1, according to Louis Curcio, director of design and construction for the Italian fashion house. It will take space formerly occupied by Bebe.

French fashion retailer Christian Dior, meanwhile, will move four doors down into a larger space near center court at Copley Place, and Giorgio Armani Corp. is looking at relocating its Emporio Armani there after it closes on Newbury Street later this year. Emporio Armani?s lower-priced sister division and longtime Copley tenant A/X Armani Exchange is moving to a new location on the second level of the mall, near Barneys New York, in May.

Whether Copley Place management plans to weed out other mass market stores is unclear, but the future doesn?t look promising for Chili?s Grill & Bar. The decidedly downscale casual restaurant sits right next door to Barneys.



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Brentano's (originally built as a Lauriat's) closes on January 26 and is having a 20% off sale until then. I've long been expecting this store to close, ever since Barnes & Noble opened next door at Prudential. When Borders (who own Brentano's) opened their own big store on Boylston Street, that was the end for this little mall store.

By the way, I created a CinemaTreasures page for the late, mostly unlamented Copley Place Cinemas. It has attracted a large number of comments.
 
Whats taking Emporio Armani's place on Newbury Street? I'm surprised they'd be closing that location, it looks like it does good business.
 
Hopefully some of these vacating "mass-market" stores will go to DTX. The area could use those shops.
 
All of these 'upscale' retailers ought to be setting up shop on Newbury instead of this mall. Copley place will be sucking the life out of Newbury, starting with Armani.
 
zenzen, i wouldn't worry too much about copley sucking tenants from newbury. loro piana (the most expensive place in the world to buy an Italian scarf) is about to open on newbury and there have been some other recent openings too. you go to a place like NYC and look around mid-town it becomes obvious that the world will never run out of retailers.
 
That may not be such a bad thing -- get the ultra-upscale stuff off Newbury and let the street return to what it used to be.
 
Newbury will do fine. I have never found the place all that appealing as a shopping destination. You could already buy just about everything there at Neiman-Marcus or Bloomie's anyway. This is a splendid opportunity, I can't wait to see the gap and j. crew go next, I would kill to have a brioni and perhaps a charles tyrwhitt(basically thomas pink, but less expensive) here, and they would definitely do quite well with the large base of substantial wealth.
 
Well I now have about a half dozen fewer reasons to ever set foot in that place, not that I ever really did to begin with.

Anyway, I came across this while checking out the video on the old El. It's time lapse photography of Copley Place going up, all in about 10 seconds time. It starts about 20 seconds in, and comes from a piece talking about the then newly-completed Tent City housing complex.

http://main.wgbh.org/ton/programs/5749_01.html
 
I always thought the EB Games was out of place there...
 
Copley Place was much less pretentious before the Prudential mall opened. For instance, there used to be a newsstand just off the center court, on the left as you walked towards the movie theatre. There was also a food court on the floor above the movie theatre.
 
Ron Newman said:
That may not be such a bad thing -- get the ultra-upscale stuff off Newbury and let the street return to what it used to be.
Click to expand...

I agree with you.

Anyone else ever go to Newbury Pizza? I love that place.
 
Tragically, Newbury Pizza closed. I loved that place and it was a huge loss to Newbury Street. Their meatball subs were unbeatable. Not that Upper Crust and Scoozi are bad, but they just don't feel like neighborhood pizza parlors.
 
I learned of Newbury Pizza's closing last week. I had heard how good the place was, but having two pizza joints within 150 ft of my door, I never made it over there to check it out. Darn..
 
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