Battle Between Northtown, Downtown May End In A Draw Area Shopping Centers Evolve To Fill Specific Market Niches

With downtown redevelopment projects moving forward and NorthTown prospering, economic and retail observers are beginning to believe both shopping districts can succeed.

That breaks a paradigm that has existed among some in the business community who saw NorthTown’s success as a negative for downtown.

NorthTown managers have always deplored the perceived “NorthTown vs. downtown” power struggle.

Shoppers just don’t see it that way, they insist. Many people shop downtown and at NorthTown, not to mention several other popular shopping areas in the county.

Statistics support that view.

About 75 percent of Spokane County residents go to the mall at least once every three months, according to a 1994 Robinson Research report. Of those, 51 percent also shop downtown at least once a month.

The percentage of Spokane County residents who regularly shop at NorthTown has increased more than 25 percent in the past seven years; the number of downtown shoppers has remained virtually constant. So NorthTown isn’t necessarily snatching shoppers from downtown merchants.

“Most people don’t see it … as a battle between the two” said Ned Annan, an attorney who lives on the North Side and has an office on the South Hill.

Annan shops downtown only when his firm subsidizes parking in one of the downtown garages or when he buys gifts for his wife at Nordstrom. He does the rest of his shopping on the North Side.

“I shop mostly at NorthTown, but I think Northpointe is just as much of a threat to downtown. That’s where all of the traffic on North Division is going,” he said. “It’s not just NorthTown.”

Northpointe Plaza, a 5-year-old power center at the Division “Y,” is a viable contender - along with downtown, NorthTown and the Valley’s University City Shopping Center- in the Spokane retail battle.

Although plaza-wide statistics are unavailable, more than 43,400 shoppers per month pass through Northpointe’s Target alone, according to a Target manager. The plaza also houses T.J. Maxx, Safeway, Smith’s Furniture and Ernst, along with a host of restaurants and smaller retailers.

Northpointe - along with stores in or near Heritage Village and big chains such as Shopko and Costco - account for more square footage than the 955,000-square-foot NorthTown. So why is the “NorthTown vs. downtown” argument pervasive?

Maybe, guessed NorthTown communication director Michelle Driano, people posit NorthTown against downtown because they associate the mall with owner David Sabey - an easy punching bag relative to a more nebulous collection of corporate entities spread across the far North Side.

Mark Schoifet of the International Council of Shopping Centers offered another answer: Nostalgic downtown buffs are simply out of touch.

Many people - especially young shoppers who grew up in suburbia - are programmed to hang out, eat and purchase goods in malls or stripmalls near city peripheries. When they think of downtown, they imagine specialty shops, offices and entertainment districts, he said.

The idea that downtown’s economic base must shift from retail to specialty shopping and entertainment has taken root with local developers.

“Destination tourism will gravitate to downtown, and the bluecollar wage earner of Spokane and much of the surrounding rural area … will still largely support NorthTown,” said Don Barbieri, president of Goodale & Barbieri Cos.

Barbieri has a financial interest in downtown, but he emphasized that he is “an advocate of three strong retail centers” situated in Spokane’s retail pulse points: downtown for South Hill shoppers and downtown employees, NorthTown for North Siders and University City for Valley residents.

As the region’s demographics change, the retail centers will become highly specialized to their market niches, Barbieri hypothesized.

“Some of the higher end stores at NorthTown might find that they can do better within visual sight of downtown and the Convention Center visitors,” Barbieri concluded.

Regardless of downtown’s future, NorthTown does not hope to bleed downtown of its retailers or shoppers, Driano said. In fact, a prosperous downtown helps NorthTown, she said.

“A vibrant downtown is important for us,” Driano said. “Downtown and NorthTown are both tourist attractions; when tourists come to visit one, they naturally come to the other. It’s a symbiotic thing.”