Target Reaches New Heights

Target opened its first three-level store at the Glendale Galleria yesterday. The 180,000-square-foot emporium replaces a shuttered Robinsons-May department store and is expected to draw additional foot traffic to one of Southern California's most successful shopping malls.

Big-box retailers such as Target have traditionally favored large one-story buildings accompanied by a sprawling parking lot. However, that format is impractical in established neighorboods becuase large tracts of real estate are expensive and difficult to assemble. As big-box retailers move into greater Los Angeles and other urban centers, they have acknowledged this restraint by pursuing multiple-level stores with structured parking as well as locations in traditional shopping malls affected by consolidation among department store chains. The Galleria's new Target exemplifies this trend.

Although Wal-Mart is considered to be less innovative than Target, the nation's largest retailer opened its first three-level store four years ago. It is also located in a Southern California shopping mall, the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South Los Angeles, replacing Macy's in a building that was originally one of the earliest branches of The Broadway, a local department store chain.

Previously on P.U.

Target Expanding into Glendale and Westminster (7/22/2006)