SEATTLE — Bruce Nordstrom admits he felt a little intimidated when he first visited South Coast Plaza four decades ago, even though retailing is in his bones.
The Orange County shopping center was "arguably the best mall in America," he said, and the company his grandfather co-founded in 1901 had never branched out from its home turf in the Pacific Northwest.
"I was just trying to learn something," said Nordstrom, now 71 and chairman of the Seattle retailer that bears his family's name.
Apparently, he did. Nordstrom Inc. eventually opened its first California store at South Coast Plaza, and it has been the chain's sales leader ever since. Today, the company is a retailing force in California, where it will open its 29th department store at Irvine Spectrum Center on Friday.
It's the first of what could be as many as half a dozen new Nordstrom stores in the region in the coming years, in part because of Federated Department Stores Inc.'s $11-billion purchase of May Department Stores Co. Federated has said it would sell 26 Macy's and Robinsons-May stores in the Southland. To satisfy regulators, it agreed to give competitors such as Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus priority in bidding on the stores.
The Fashion Island shopping center in Newport Beach and the Victoria Gardens mall in Rancho Cucamonga are likely at the top of Nordstrom's list, said Gregory Stoffel, a retail real estate strategist in Irvine. Other sites might include Santa Monica Place and Simi Valley Town Center, he said.
Nordstrom executives have said they will be "opportunistic" about selecting sites, but won't say which ones they're most interested in.
"We view it as a great opportunity," said Blake Nordstrom, Bruce's son and the company's president, during a recent interview in his Seattle office, where a glass display case bearing old shoes, shoehorns and polish stands as a memorial to the company's roots as a footwear seller. "California's a very important part of our business."
It's a business that's likely to get tougher as Federated, by far the nation's largest department store chain, focuses its considerable firepower on expanding Macy's and opening two more of its vaunted Bloomingdale's stores, in San Diego and South Coast Plaza.
For Nordstrom, the key will be to stay riveted on customer service -- the thing that most distinguishes it from the pack -- and on top of fashion trends, retail experts say.
