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Saks Downtown sheds department store label

By
Lisa Fickenscher
Published Sep. 8, 2016, 5:23 p.m. ET

Saks Downtown is the anti-department store.

The luxury chain’s new downtown outpost, which opens Friday in Brookfield Place, is smaller than a typical department store. At 86,000 square feet, it is a fraction of the 650,000-square-foot Saks Fifth Avenue.

It is also tightly edited with a focus on up-and-coming designers. Victoria Beckham, Alexander Wang and Balmain are sprinkled throughout the three-story store, including ready to wear apparel and accessories.

The store does away with some departments altogether. The designers’ handbags are included with their duds rather than in a separate handbag department.

“It’s more boutique than department store, spread out by designer,” Marc Metrick, president of Saks Fifth Avenue, said during a tour of the store.

Some portion of the store will get new designers every 30 days while some of the regular designers will provide exclusive merchandise to the store.

The beauty department has treatment rooms where shoppers can get facials and other services.

Shoppers can also get treated to a free “power lunch” that includes a catered meal from one of the dozens of restaurants at Brookfield Place, plus the services of a personal shopper in one of its seven private suites.

Saks is also introducing a “fashion crisis” hotline to help locals with broken heels, stained ties or dress shirts among other disasters, said Tracy Margolies, chief merchant of the 41-store chain.

The store also carries the largest selection of sunglasses of any Saks store — 800 styles — that are not kept behind lock and key.

Saks Downtown debuts amid a slump in department store sales and Hudson Bay Cos., which owns Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, is not immune to the trend. In its most recent quarter, Hudson Bay reported that comparable sales on a constant currency basis declined by 1.3 percent.

“Saks is a great store with great merchants, but the question is do consumers want to shop in multi-brand stores,” said Richard Kestenbaum, partner of Triangle Capital.

Others say the new store’s size will work in its favor, along with its location in a dining and shopping destination.

“Fifth Avenue is not a dining destination, but the downtown Saks is surrounded by options,” said Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners.

Hudson Bay is betting big on lower Manhattan. Saks Downtown will be joined in the spring by a men’s store nearby and a Saks Off 5th store at One Liberty Plaza.