H&M Clothing Store Grand Opening at Tacoma Mall - Today ( 9. September 2010, 18:02 by Daniel Rahe) ~
If you’ve been looking for skinny ties, slender suspenders, leggings, fedoras, faux-Ray-Bans, high-topped boat shoes or slim flannel slacks, fate has smiled upon you today. The popular Swedish retailer H&M has opened a store in our very own Tacoma Mall this afternoon.
Before today, expeditions for such items required the fashion-conscious Tacoman to drive as far as Westfield Southcenter Mall or Seattle. Thrift stores and local recycled fashion boutiques remain as acceptable alternatives.
Exit 133’s writers are certainly a fashionable – perhaps even natty – lot. Even so, none of us were able to break away from the office long enough to wait in the reportedly substantial line at the Tacoma H&M Grand Opening gala. This addition to the Tacoma Mall has generated excitement comparable to the recent opening of its Apple Store.
The accelerated schedule of H&M’s grand opening certainly didn’t diminish the buzz either. Eager shoppers were prepared initially to wait until the Holidays for the event, and were delighted to learn last week that it had been moved ahead to September 9th.
Once the early rash of crowds diminish, you’ll probably find me there pretending I’m not going to buy another ridiculously smart and well-fitting suit for under $100. Please refrain from teasing me about it.
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From a friend’s Facebook page:
“OK so shopping is a SERIOUS sport…EXHIBIT A: While at H&M’s fully packed grand opening today a woman in line had a child that needed to pee. What do U think she did???
A- Get out of line to take him to the bathroom?
OR
B- Pull out an empty water bottle and direct him to pee into it while keeping her place in line?”
1 | Posted by Jennifer Boutell | Sep 9, 08:09 PM
First Sonic now H&M. Tacoma is becoming a world class city. Buy Now!!!! or Invest!!!
2 | Posted by crenshaw sepulveda | Sep 9, 08:34 PM
Ugh, yet another place I will never go simply because it’s in the mall. I’d rather go to the dentist than the mall…
3 | Posted by Nick | Sep 10, 09:19 AM
Right on, Nick. If businesses want my business, they’ll open in downtown or 6th Ave, not the mall.
4 | Posted by dolly varden | Sep 10, 04:56 PM
Oh no, 75 cents! Besides, you can easily walk, bike, or bus to downtown or 6th Ave from many Tacoma neighborhoods. The mall area is built for autos — it’s scary for bikes and pedestrians to get there from just about anywhere.
6 | Posted by dolly varden | Sep 11, 10:46 AM
I think there are enough people who like to shop at the mall to outweigh all the mall-haters. Even if they don’t LIKE to shop at the mall, though, there are certain stores that are nowhere else in Tacoma. For example, if you want to buy fabric, your choices are JoAnn’s or Hancock’s, both in the mall neighborhood.
Plus, the big bus transfer station is just across the (nicely crosswalked) street from the mall!
7 | Posted by okay with the mall | Sep 11, 02:26 PM
I wish mall haters would ponder a for a moment the amount of tax dollars the city receives from the acres of land the from I-5 to Pine St. and 47th to 36th; in other words the Tacoma Mall and its spill over area.
Do I wish we still had the downtown of department stores and specialty shops I remember? Sure I do. Will hating the mall and refusing to go there bring that back? No. Would it have been better for Tacoma for UP to have succeeded with its original plan to lure high end stores like H&M and Apple to its Town Centre? No. Could the Tacoma Mall make itself more transit and bike and pedestrian friendly? Yes.
I, for one, have been impressed at the improvements the Simon company has made at the mall in recent years. I can think of a few more but I will certainly continue to shop there and in the downtown and neighborhood districts as well.
9 | Posted by notme | Sep 12, 12:33 PM
I’d like to see a few “for-real” highrises go up around the mall. Maybe 10-20 story buildings.
But then again, I want 40+ story buildings in downtown. Having both is a bit of a pipe dream. You gotta have a for-real “big” city to pull off a developed secondary core. Bigger than Tacoma. Bigger than Seattle, actually. More like a Dallas/Philly/Phoenix sized city.
10 | Posted by Thorax O'Tool | Sep 12, 12:48 PM
Count me in the mall hater group —- in its current format.
There is a time and a place for everything in this world and the mall is too close to downtown. It’s so close it cannibalizes downtown’s ability to have hard-core shopping. I view that as a necessity of any DT core as shopping attracts women… and women attract men… who buy bachelor pads near where they figure they can meet women… who also date/meet these guys at restaurants and bars in said downtown.
Guys chase women. Women chase shopping. Is it true or an I delusional? =)
If the mall were out further at say 512 and I-5, there could be two malls. One downtown mall and one in suburbia would be great.
11 | Posted by Jesse | Sep 13, 08:24 AM
Also, I may be wrong but I hear Ft. Lewis is planning shopping on base for it’s folks. How about a joint effort right off base at 512 and I-5 for a giant suburban mall? Can something like that happen? It’d fix a lot of problems for DT if the current mall were crushed by it.
12 | Posted by Jesse | Sep 13, 08:28 AM
Jesse, JBLM has two major shopping complexes on both sub-installations, along with a full range of specialty and retail shopping to include two major commissary’s. One can get everything from organic quinoa pasta (for $1.50 a package) to a new set of tires. They probably won’t contribute to an off-base shopping complex but rather continue to improve the existing facilities.
13 | Posted by Tim Smith | Sep 13, 09:15 AM
I deplore malls too, but the sheer statistics of people who don’t care, or think that the mall offers a pleasant experience, or think that it is convenient, or who are just plain mentally lazy and would spell classy with a “K” eclipse those who seek more complexity in their shopping excursions. These are people who have never been to an art fair but will drop several hundred bucks at Thomas Kinkade.
And there’s more of them than you.
If only there was somewhere else I could go to Build a Bear. Sigh.
Grumpy Monday, I guess.
14 | Posted by tom waits | Sep 13, 10:42 AM
My fellow countrymen, The Tacoma Maul is not your friend.
15 | Posted by RR Anderson | Sep 13, 01:02 PM
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