Off-pricers fill void as upstairs chains back out of new mall - off-price retail clothing stores open in City Place shopping center, Washington, D.C

Discount Store News, April 20, 1992 by Ken Rankin

SILVER SPRING, MD. -- They call it "City Place"--a glitzy new downtown shopping mall with a neo-Art Deco motif and a distinctly discount flavor.

If successful, the project should breathe ne life into the fading central business district of this Washington, D.C., bedroom suburb.

And City Place may emerge as the area's most prominent showcase for upscale off-price retailers.

But it wasn't supposed to be that way.

When developers drafted blueprints for City Place back in the 1980s, they envisioned a vest-pocket version of the yuppified suburban shopping malls that circle the nation's capital.

As the realities of the '90s sank in, however, the traditional specialty chains expected to populate City Place began to back away from the project.

With the recession squeezing their outlets in D.C.-area suburban malls such as Tysons Corner, White Flint and Wheaton Plaza, these pricey niche chains feared expansion into City Place would dilute their share of an already watery market.

At that point developers of the new Silver Spring mall shifted gears to attract a different tenant mix--up-beat but off-price chains like Marshalls, Ross Dress for Less and Nordstrom Rack.

With those three signed on to anchor City Place, the developers began fleshing out the mall with some two dozen smaller specialty stores, including S&K Men's Wear, Fitz & Floyd, and Dress Barn. Next they created an eye-popping 80-foot art deco atrium with an attached parking garage accommodating 1,500 cars.

The five-story mall, which was carved out of the carcass of an abandoned Hechts department store, will ultimately house 70 stores, two full-service restaurants, ten fast food outlets, and a ten-screen movie theater.

But even with half the storefronts still awaiting tenants, City Place is a sparkling $60 million marble and glass showcase with all the trappings of suburbia's up-scale shopping domes, plus discount prices.

Despite the mall's tenant mix, terms like "discount" or "off-price" are a bit to strong for City Place developer Walt Petrie. He calls the operation "value-oriented retailing," and says it is in step with the public's growing appetite for more price-conscious shopping.

Judging by the opening day crowds, Washington area sub-urbanites are hungry for what City Place has to offer. By noon the new parking garage was overflowing and incoming traffic was backed up to the Washington Beltway.

Shoppers who elbowed their way in for a peek at the new mall were met by tuxedo-clad greeters at the entrances, free movies at he cinema, jugglers at the escalators, and a jazz band in the food court.

Despite the heavy public interest in Silver Spring's new off-price mall, area retailers are far from convinced that City Place will prove to be a surefire success.

Even if the developers reach their goal of signing tenants for the mall's 40 vacant stores by Christmas, City Place may not be enough to coax affluent shoppers back from Washington's entrenched regional malls.

Ironically, the new center's long-term success may hinge on a proposal for Silver Triangle--a competing downtown Silver Spring mall on a parcel that literally adjoins City Place.

Although plans for Silver Triangle have been on the drafting table for as long as City Place, that project has been repeatedly delayed by a series of financial, regulatory and political setbacks.

Unlike City Place, the developers of Silver Triangle are planning on two full-scale department store anchors--trump cards that many say will be needed to draw shoppers back to a born again Silver Spring.

The question for the town's new corps of off-pricers is whether City Place can survive until reinforcements arrive.