Nike store could bring other big-name retailers to downtown Detroit
The opening today of the new Nike sports apparel store on Woodward Avenue in the heart of Detroit signals that downtown’s decades-long drought of big-name retailing may be coming to an end.
The Nike store opens at 10 this morning at 1261 Woodward in retail space owned by businessman Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate Services. The opening will follow a private event inside the store featuring Michigan State University basketball coach Tom Izzo.
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Jim Bieri, a Detroit-based retail consultant with Stokas Bieri Real Estate, said the coming of Nike shows that Gilbert’s organization is able to reach out to major national brands and find a way to make them work in the city. And it’s likely to lead to more big names coming downtown.
“I think this is a building block,” Bieri said. “When you tell a good portion of the retail world that you have Nike, it makes a big difference.”
Dan Mullen, Bedrock’s executive vice president, echoed that.
Nike “absolutely helps to bring in other retailers,” he said. “It’s just going to continue to grow. Nike being such a huge brand, everyone’s going to want to be right around Nike.”
Although Nike’s shoes and other athletic products can be purchased at dozens of outlets in Metro Detroit as well as online, a Nike store represents something else again — a spacious upscale lifestyle emporium that often becomes a destination in itself.
In Detroit, it would become the latest upscale retailer along the formerly lackluster stretch of Woodward between Campus Martius and Grand Circus Park. Recent additions to that stretch include the upscale John Varvatos men’s clothing store. In the past, the Moosejaw outdoor clothing and equipment store opened nearby.
One store cannot turn around a district by itself, and there are plenty of other storefronts on that stretch of Woodward still sitting empty. Mullen said Bedrock will continue to carefully select unique retailers to fill those slots.
“Our plan has always been to be very, very methodical when we merchandise retail,” Mullen said. “We want to make sure we have great co-tenancies, brands that fit next to each other nicely.” The quest, he said, is to “find stores that are different and unique, that provide an experience to come downtown and not just duplicate everything that’s in the suburbs. We’re really trying to curate the urban experience.”
Dennis van Oossanen, Nike’s vice president of North America Retail, said the new store is the latest commitment to the Michigan market.
“This has been a special and important community to our brand for years,” he said in a statement. “We already have several retail locations in Michigan, including Nike Factory Stores in Auburn Hills, Birch Run, Grand Rapids and Howell. But we know our consumers, and they also live in Detroit. It was important for us to reach them where they are, and we knew our involvement in this community would be important for them too.”
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Nike last established a presence in downtown Detroit in 2004 when it occupied a small portion of an Athlete’s Foot store that opened at 1448 Woodward. That store closed after a few years.
The new store on Woodward will be one of Nike’s so-called community stores, signifying the company’s commitment to local youth and residents. In its community stores, Nike commits to hiring at least 80% of its team from within a 5-mile radius of the location. In some locations, as in the Nike East Los Community Store in Los Angeles, the number has been virtually 100%.
Nike also commits to allowing its retail staff, known as “store athletes,” time to volunteer in their local community as part of the Nike Community Ambassador Program. And community stores also try to capture the spirit of a local community; in the Detroit store, artwork will feature photos of local sports scenes as well as apparel from the Detroit Tigers and Lions and the MSU Spartans.
“At Nike, when evaluating Community Store locations, we look for places where we can make a positive contribution to a growing local community and Detroit is no exception,” van Oossanen said.
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Contact John Gallagher: 313-222-5173 or gallagher@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @jgallagherfreep.