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Dodson’s Will Close Mall Store

Michael Murphey Staff writer

(From For the Record of Friday, April 12, 1996:) Dodson’s Jewelers will operate one Spokane store - downtown - as well as stores in Coeur d’Alene, the Tri-Cities and Moses Lake after closing its NorthTown Mall store. An article in Thursday’s business section omitted the non-Spokane stores.

In a reversal of a trend that has seen merchants leave or dilute their downtown operations in favor of outlying malls, Dodson’s Jewelers has decided to close its store at NorthTown Mall.

The move leaves Dodson’s with only one store - downtown.

Improved downtown sales and Nordstrom’s recent commitment to remain downtown were cited by Penn Fix, Dodson’s vice president, as the reasons Dodson’s will not renew its NorthTown lease.

“We feel we can better serve our customers by focusing all our efforts on one store,” Fix said Wednesday.

Dodson’s NorthTown lease expires in July, but the company received permission from NorthTown to leave in May.

NorthTown is 91 percent occupied and General Manager Les Kinsey doesn’t expect a problem replacing Dodson’s.

“We have several applicants for that location,” he said. “It’s a very key location.”

Harvey’s Fine Clothing left NorthTown in favor of downtown’s Crescent Court last year. Until then, retail movement had been in the opposite direction since NorthTown was expanded and renovated in the early ‘90s.

Fix said Dodson’s began to see an upsurge in its downtown business when the new STA Plaza opened and parking spaces were returned to Riverside Ave.

“We haven’t had parking on Riverside to the extent we have now for the past 15 years,” Fix said. “When the transit center opened, they added 50 parking spaces right around us.”

A strong Christmas season helped affirm Dodson’s downtown commitment.

“We had a lot of competition last Christmas that we thought would take a lot of business away from us,” Fix said, “but our sales were up nearly 20 percent at the downtown store.

“We found that a lot of people want to shop downtown,” he said, “and we were able to give them a reason to do it.”

Fix said the NorthTown Dodson’s stock will be liquidated between April 11 and May 4. Proceeds from the liquidation will be used to fund a remodeling project at the downtown Dodson’s.

, DataTimes