Furniture a star at big N.C. mall
Durham stores focus on lifestyle presentations
By Brian Carroll -- Furniture Today, April 14, 2002
DURHAM , N.C. — Home furnishings stores are prominent and abundant in North Carolina's newest and largest mall, The Streets at Southpoint, which opened with great fanfare and extensive media coverage here last month.
Encompassing 1.3 million square feet and 150 stores and restaurants, Southpoint is an upscale, indoor-outdoor mall catering to North Carolina's fast-growing Triangle region, a sprawling urban area that includes Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and such ritzy suburbs as Cary.
Among the mall's stores are the first in North Carolina for Eddie Bauer Home, Nordstrom, Metropolitan Deluxe and Organized Living. In addition, the mall's Restoration Hardware unit is that chain's new prototype.
Clustered along the mall's outdoor cityscape, which is called Main Street, the home furnishings stores use mostly lifestyle-oriented displays and presentations, differentiating them from the bulk of furniture stores in the Triangle area.
The eighth location for Metropolitan Deluxe, the store here is enjoying the best opening yet for the 12-year-old, Atlanta-based chain, said Marjorie Fish, the Durham store's manager.
"We're a bit different, so we've attracted a lot of attention," Fish said. "We've been told by a lot of people that we're the best new store in the mall. People like our fun, funky approach."
Metropolitan Deluxe features vintage looks from vendors that include Mitchell Gold and Cisco. Mitchell Gold upholstery also is available next door at Restoration Hardware and just across Main Street at Pottery Barn.
"But we offer 350 fabrics and the whole Mitchell Gold line," Fish said, "not just a few frames and fabrics."
Metropolitan Deluxe also has stores in Charleston, S.C.; Norfolk, Va.; and Atlanta.
New look for Restoration
Restoration Hardware used its newest location — and the chain's only new unit planned for 2002's first quarter — to unveil a new prototype, a broader furniture assortment and some new display methods.
"It is doubly exciting to be involved in a store opening and a brand new mall," said Nancy Butner, store manager and the person charged with orchestrating the store opening, Restoration Hardware's 105th location.
"For customers and followers, this is a whole new experience," she said. "We have made major changes."
Among the changes are offering more lifestyle-oriented presentations, even in fixtures, and bringing core categories, which include furniture, more to the fore.
Customers walking in, for example, are greeted by the Carlisle sofa with nailhead trim and a dramatic, 70-inch Mercer tufted leather ottoman. Just behind this upholstered pair is the Greenwich iron bed featuring one of Restoration's newest linen collections and color palettes.
"Lifestyle is more important" in the new prototype, Butner said. "We have less SKUs but a more focused, cleaner look."
Metropolitan Deluxe is sandwiched between Restoration Hardware and Eddie Bauer Home. Across the street is the Williams Sonoma-owned tandem of Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids. Store managers there would not comment for this story. Retail as entertainment
Only a handful of shopping centers throughout the country have implemented a downtown-like outdoor cityscape. The mall's marketing coordinator, Suzanne Christiana, said the objective was to replicate the feel of an updated Durham downtown and to offer outdoor dining and entertainment options.
Outdoor patio dining, lush landscaping, theatrical lighting, dramatic architecture and interactive fountains give Main Street an almost Disney-esque feel.
"We've tried to cluster wherever possible around categories, such as home furnishings and children's apparel," Christiana said.
At the end of Main Street, next to a 16-screen, state-of-the-art cineplex, is North Carolina's first Organized Living, a 25,000-square-foot store specializing in storage and organization products for all areas of the home and office, including furniture.
The mall, which features two-story store facades, streetlights and sculpture, is anchored by department stores Nordstrom, Hecht's, Hudson Belk, JCPenney and Sears. Nordstrom covers 144,000 square feet and features that chain's new in-store dining concept, Café Bistro, while Hecht's spreads out over 180,000 square feet.
The Streets at Southpoint was developed by Urban Retail Properties, one of the nation's largest property managers with more than 65 million square feet of retail space in 28 states and the District of Columbia. Based in Chicago, Urban manages such shopping centers as Century City in Los Angeles, Water Tower Place in Chicago, Copley Place in Boston and the Galleria in Houston.
The mall has a Web site, www.streetsatsouthpoint.com.
| The Streets at Southpoint in Durham, N.C., is a new 1.3-million-square-foot retail showcase combining indoor and outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment. |
| Organized Living, a home office and organization specialist, anchors Main Street. |
| Metropolitan Deluxe's first North Carolina store is on Southpoint's Main Street in a cluster of home furnishings stores. |
| Along furniture row is the new Eddie Bauer Home store. |
| Pottery Barn Kids is a Main Street neighbor to Pottery Barn, one of three Williams Sonoma properties in the new mall. |
| This Mitchell Gold loveseat is offered by Metropolitan Deluxe for $700. |
| The heart of Restoration Hardware's furniture program is Mission. Shown here is a solid oak bed for $1,500. |
| Shoppers entering Metropolitan Deluxe are greeted by a forest of cut bamboo, one of the store's hottest items. Also shown is an 80-inch farm dining table retailing for $800. |
| Eddie Bauer Home's entryway stars the Shutter bed, which retails for $1,000, and an arm chair at $600. |
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