For Under Armour, the new sportswear retailer that opened a store last week in Detroit, the strategy to open downtown instead of in a high-end mall in the suburbs is connected to changes in the city and the retail industry.
Downtown Detroit — which has been attracting more shops, restaurants, residents, offices, conventions, sports events, and will soon have the Qline running — is a place that Under Armour executives are counting on to showcase merchandise that customers can see, touch, try on and buy to take with them — or purchase online either in the store right then or at home later.
“There’s so much happening here, and the renaissance is so remarkable,” Susie McCabe, Under Armour’s senior vice president of global retail, said while visiting the Detroit store. “When we started having conversations about a year and a half ago, we heard about all the investments and the plans for the city. To see them come to life, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is incredible!’ ”
The Maryland-based apparel and shoe company opened the 17,000-plus-square-foot specialty store at 1201 Woodward, not far from rival retailer Nike, on Thursday.
More than being just another store, it is an example of how retailers nationally are moving away from suburban malls, many of which are struggling as department store anchors — including Macy’s, Sears, and J.C. Penney — close. It also shows how new stores have become luxurious salons aimed at offering experiences to promote the brand, provide personal service, and boost e-commerce by giving shoppers a place to get a good look and feel for merchandise they can purchase online.
“Creating an experience is what retailing is all about,” said Tom Scott, senior vice president of the Michigan Retailers Association in Lansing. “You are trying to attract people in the store. But, the retailer is also all about providing goods any way the customer wants to buy them.”
What distinguishes a downtown store from a suburban one is that the customer traffic is expected to be not just from people who live and work in the area, but also from sports fans and convention-goers who may live hundreds of miles away and are looking for something to do while they are in the city.
Inside the store
Brian Johnson made a 30-something mile trip to Detroit to be among the first shoppers in the door the first day. He was waiting outside in a light drizzle before the doors opened at 10 a.m.
The 32-year-old White Lake resident wore a bright red Under Armour jacket.
“There’s only a handful of these stores in the country,” he added. “It’s good for the city. It’s good for us.”
Under Armour has three Factory House stores in Michigan, at the Tanger Outlet in Howell, Birch Run Premium Outlets in Birch Run, and at the Tanger Outlet Grand Rapids in Byron Center.
The downtown store is Under Armour’s first Brand House in the state.
The new store, which sells clothing and shoes for men, women and children, held a bigger opening celebration later with free food and drinks, drawing in shoppers leaving the Tigers’ game.
The two-level store is a shop with a boutique feel that is uniquely Detroit, even though it is part of a global chain.
When you walk in, you see a fit-looking mannequin family — dad, mom, son, daughter — dressed in stylish Under Armour gear sporting Tigers’ logos. One of them is even wearing a baseball glove.
McCabe — who declined to discuss the company’s financial targets for the store — said she expects Detroit’s sports events to help bring customers in the door.
“What I’ve heard is that 11 million people come to greater downtown a year, 9 million to downtown, and you’ve got 4½ million who are coming to sporting events each year,” McCabe said. “So you’ve got tourists, and you’ve locals — and I would think there’s pent-up demand relative to shopping downtown.”
She said the company also is eager to boost online sales.
Shoppers strolling by the Detroit store on their way to a ballgame may see a shirt they like through the window, stop in, try it on for size and then buy it to take with them — or if they don’t want to tote it to the stadium, they can go online and have it shipped to their home. If they aren’t ready to buy it immediately, they can go online to get it later.
To add to the store’s unique look, Under Armour commissioned local artists Michelle Tanguay, Ty Sawyer and Sydney James to paint rooms featuring Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander, ballerina Misty Copeland and boxer Muhammad Ali.
It also offers a mix of traditional touches — an old staircase and marble walls left from the days when it was a Kresge store — with modern elements — a giant, flat screen to play videos and customized messages, a mini version of what is on the side of the Cobo Center.
The Detroit store also is the first to feature professional wrestler Dwayne Johnson, who has an Under Armour line called Project Rock, on its walls, according to the company. One of the special items the store features is the Project Rock shoes because they have been sold out almost everywhere else.
Some of the shoppers who had lined up to be first in the door on Thursday said they were eager to buy the hard-to-get shoes.
Shopping destination
Downtown Detroit is a long way from being the shopping destination that it was up until the 80s, when suburban malls replaced it.
Those days may well be over.
But, as malls decline, retailers and developers hope it isn’t and are searching for new locations. In metro Detroit alone, Summit Place mall in Pontiac and Northland mall in Southfield are dead, Eastland Mall in Harper Woods is struggling, and there is a plan to remake Lakeside mall into residential and office developments.
In the past year, an array of speciality shops has opened on Woodward, including Nike; Kit and Ace, which sells athletic and leisure clothing; Moosejaw, an outdoor gear retailer; John Varvatos, a menswear designer who grew up Downriver; Warby Parker, a vintage-inspired eyeglass shop; Detroit is the New Black, a designer wear retailer for women, and Bonobos, a seller of hip, upscale menswear.
Bonobos, which calls its stores guideshops, is set up specifically for online sales. Clothes are shipped to a customer’s home.
“Having Under Armour join our collection of retail on Woodward Avenue sets the tone and continues to solidify that downtown Detroit is home to a phenomenal shopping corridor,” said Dan Mullen, president of Bedrock Detroit, Under Armour’s landlord. “Being able to get a Brand House signifies where we are as a city and as a retail destination.”
McCabe said she is confident that shoppers will come to Detroit to shop at the new Under Armour store.
“Anyone who I meet from Detroit — or Michigan — has this incredible sense of pride,” she said just before the doors opened to the public. “There are so many people who come back to the city and are rooting for the city to make a comeback that a store here felt really natural to us.”
