Coldwater Creek to add 60 workers

Coldwater Creek will hire 60 new employees at its corporate headquarters in Sandpoint this year to keep up with rapid retail expansion.

The company plans to add 60 new women’s clothing stores in 2005, with an eventual goal of 450 or 500 nationwide. The chain operates 114 stores at this time.

The new employees will be added in the company’s finance and creative departments, and in merchandising, the unit responsible for selecting Coldwater Creek’s private-label apparel, shoes and accessories.

“The positions allow us to keep up the aggressive rate of growth,” said David Gunter, company spokesman.

Coldwater Creek was founded as a catalog company, and began rolling out a line of retail stores in 2000. The corporate goal is to capture a larger share of the $90 billion U.S. women’s apparel market. About 90 percent of women’s clothing purchases are still made in stores.

Last year, the company raised $41 million for store expansion. About 60 percent of the new stores are located in “lifestyle centers” – shopping centers on the edges of affluent suburbs.

“It’s a very hot concept across the country,” Gunter said of lifestyle centers. “The idea is that they cluster upscale brands together. You might have a Coldwater Creek grouped with a Chico’s and a Barnes and Noble. Generally, there’s a restaurant, and a grocery store like Whole Foods.”

The other new stores are opening in upscale malls, Gunter said. Coldwater Creek targets women ages 30 to 60, who have a household income of $75,000 or more.

Each store costs about $560,000 to build, according to a prospectus put out by the company last year. Store sizes average 5,000 to 6,000 square feet, and Coldwater Creek expects an annual return of $500 in sales per square foot within three years, the prospectus said.

After the 60 new employees are hired, the company will employ about 385 people in Sandpoint. A former warehouse is being renovated for additional office space.

Coldwater Creek closed the 198,000-square-foot warehouse in 2002, when the company consolidated all of its shipping functions at a West Virginia distribution center.

The warehouse also contains two “virtual stores,” where pictures are taken of merchandise displays. The pictures are transmitted digitally to stores, so that store employees have clothing displays to follow, Gunter said.