THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 18, 1996 TAG: 9602180017
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
For most shoppers, a walk through City Center mall begins on its third floor - where they enter from the main parking garage. The traffic in the mall is carefully managed through a system of escalators and glass elevators designed to pull a shopper along at eye level beside every story.
The mall's three aisles are built around a central atrium, which floods the stores and walkways with light from a massive skylight. In the center atrium is an amphitheater, where shoppers sit and eat lunch, and watch the live music provided by the mall management.
With most shoppers entering on the third level, that's where the most exclusive stores are. That's where you find Henri Bendel, with dresses for $1,600 and wool blouses for $900. There's a Metropolitan Museum of Art store - the only one in the Midwest - plus Brooks Brothers and other other pricey stores.
Expensive and exclusive stores are studded throughout the mall. On the second level you can buy a Louis Vuitton leather purse for $2,000. On the lowest levels, there are nice stores but also more common ones, like a B.F. Dalton bookstore and a General Nutrition Center health food store.
The mall's magnets are its three anchor department stores: Marshall Field's, based in Chicago, is unique to the region, as is Michigan-based Jacobson's. The 500,000-square-foot Lazarus is by far the biggest store of the chain in the metropolitan area.
Together, they make the mall unique. The region's other malls, according to many shoppers, usually consist of ``a Sears, a J.C. Penney and a Lazarus.''
MacArthur Center also will be geared to an upscale market. It will have a Nordstrom and a Dillard's. Both are unique to Hampton Roads, and the Seattle-based Nordstrom has an industry-envied mystique for service and high quality. The Dillard's, at 250,000 square feet, will be almost twice as large as any department store in the area.
The overall design of the Columbus mall is typical Taubman and fairly similar to what is planned for Norfolk - light and airy, with nothing to distract the visitor from looking, and shopping, at the stores. The aisles are cantilevered out over the central atrium - which means a minimum of supporting columns to interfere with a visitor's gaze. The railings for the aisles are made of glass for the same reason.
Almost all color or intricate displays come from the storefronts - the reason the mall exists.
KEYWORDS: SHOPPING MALLS SHOPPING CENTERS URBAN RENEWAL
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