THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 3, 1995 TAG: 9502030613
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Short : 39 lines
Old Navy Clothing Co., the no-frills, discount version of The Gap, will enter the Hampton Roads market with a store in Norfolk this spring, a real estate official said Thursday.
The 15,000-square-foot outlet will be located in the Janaf Shopping Center, in the spot previously occupied by Revco, said Tred Spratley, executive vice president of Richmond-based Sigma Realty Management. The Old Navy store is tentatively scheduled to open in March.
``We're very excited about it,'' Spratley said. ``It's a new concept for the Gap.''
Gap Inc., based in San Francisco, opened its first Old Navy outlet last March to target the discount apparel market. It has about 50 stores. The company has said it plans to open up to 70 Old Navy outlets this year and possibly up to 100 in 1995.
Company executives have said they expect Old Navy to become Gap's second-largest division by the end of the decade. The Gap division is the company's largest, followed by GapKids. Gap Inc. also owns Banana Republic.
The apparel in the Old Navy stores usually is more casual than clothing found in The Gap stores. Consumers may notice that The Gap now has more silk and satin at the front of its stores in addition to the staple Gap-brand blue jeans.
Gap had been eyeing another site - a planned shopping center in the Greenbrier section of Chesapeake - for its first Old Navy store in Hampton Roads. The company apparently chose the Norfolk shopping center instead, sources said. MEMO: (Bloomberg Business News contributed to this report) by CNB