Ann Taylor Plans Store Downtown Upscale Retailer Signs Lease For Shop In River Park Square

A high-end specialty retailer has signed a lease with downtown Spokane’s River Park Square development.

New York City-based Ann Taylor will open a 4,200-square-foot store in August 1999 on Main Street. Developers say the store will be the retailers’ only Spokane location.

“For Spokane, Wash., to be able to secure an Ann Taylor is a real plus for the project,” said Bob Robideaux, project manager for the $110-million development.

The street-level store will carry both career and casual clothes for petite and regular sizes, along with accessories and shoes.

“This is a great time for us to enter the Spokane market and to introduce our concept of career and lifestyle clothing to women throughout the Inland Northwest region,” Valerie Richardson, Ann Taylor’s senior vice president of real estate, said in a prepared statement.

Ann Taylor is a publicly held company and describes its customers this way in federal tax documents: “The company believes that the customer base for its Ann Taylor stores consists primarily of relatively affluent, fashion-conscious women from the age of 25 to 55 and that the majority of its customers are working women with limited time to shop.”

Ann Taylor’s net sales for the fiscal year ending Feb. 1, 1997, were $798 million. The company operates more than 300 stores in 41 states.

Ann Taylor will be joining Nordstrom, AMC Theaters, Eddie Bauer, Talbots, Anderson and Emami and other retailers in the River Park Square development. Nordstrom, the project’s anchor tenant, announced in February that it had signed a 20-year lease.

Developers say they will make additional tenant announcements in coming weeks.

River Park Square is owned by Citizens Realty Co. and Lincoln Investment Co., affiliates of Cowles Publishing Co., owner of The Spokesman-Review.

, DataTimes