Nordstrom Workers Ready To Move Under Cover Of Night

Shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday, when the doors of the old Nordstrom store next to Westlake Park swing shut for the last time, the transformation of a key part of downtown Seattle will begin.

More than 1,000 Nordstrom employees will spend the night pushing racks of dresses and suits and box loads of shoes and cosmetics across Fifth Avenue into Nordstrom's new $100 million flagship store. The old store will be closed all day Thursday, the first time Nordstrom has ever closed one of its stores for a full working day. The new store, in the restored former Frederick & Nelson building, will open at 9:30 a.m. Friday.

Perhaps no store opening in downtown Seattle has been watched as closely as this one. Many see it as the linchpin of downtown Seattle's revival.

While Sixth Avenue and Pine Street housed a collection of shuttered buildings after Frederick & Nelson closed in 1992 and I. Magnin followed in 1993, the area has been reborn with new retail businesses.

Nordstrom's opening will be followed by the opening of the $175 million Pacific Place retail-cinema complex just east on Sixth and Pine in October and the Old Navy store in the former I. Magnin building on the southeast corner of Sixth and Pine on Sept. 23. Benaroya Hall opens Sept. 12 at Third Avenue and Union Street.

The new Nordstrom will be 55 percent bigger than the old downtown store. It glistens with Italian marble floors, long rows of cosmetics counters, wide aisles and bright lights. It occupies 380,000 square feet of retail space over 5 1/2 floors, the largest of Nordstrom's 96 stores around the country.

The all-night move

The move across the intersection of Fifth and Pine, in the planning stages for more than two years, will resemble a nighttime military maneuver.

Seattle police will close Fifth Avenue from Westlake Avenue to Pike Street, and Pine from Seventh to Fourth avenues, from approximately 8 p.m. Wednesday until 5 a.m. Thursday so Nordstrom employees can begin moving merchandise from the old store to the new one. Most of the work is expected to be completed in five to six hours, said Molly Kuffner, Nordstrom's Northwest Logistics group manager.

The move will employ 800 to 900 rolling clothes racks; 3,700 linear feet of shrink wrap to put around the racks to keep the clothes from falling off; 6,000 corrugated totes for shoes, cosmetics, shirts, sweaters and other smaller items; 75 to 100 dollies; and 50 table-carts or oversized dollies, Kuffner said.

Employees will work overtime shifts of six to seven hours. Nordstrom would not say how much the move would cost in pay or lost sales from the one day of closure.

"It's kind of `go' time now," said downtown store manager Jeff Greer. "The challenge obviously is continuing to run our existing business across the street and staying focused on getting across to the new building in a fluid move."

Countdown to opening

About 15 to 30 minutes before the Pine Street entrances are unlocked at 9:30 Friday, salespeople will begin gathering shoulder to shoulder on the main floor to greet the first customers. As has become a Nordstrom tradition at new store openings, employees will begin clapping, Greer will rush down the aisles slapping their upraised palms, and then begin a countdown over the public-address system in the final seconds before the doors open.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our people, particularly here where we don't have a lot of new store openings," Greer said. The celebration will continue into the weekend as Nordstrom hosts a party all day Saturday in Westlake Park, with musical groups, jugglers, mimes and other entertainment.

The store will employ around 900, including 270 new employees hired from among 2,000 applicants.

Some of those moving to the new store, like Janet Shonborg, used to work at Frederick & Nelson.

"I was there to celebrate the (F&N) 100th anniversary. We had a cake shaped like the building. The building is a real image for me. It is great to see that it is going to be utilized fully," said Shonborg, a former buyer in Frederick & Nelson's gourmet candy and wine departments and now a sales associate in Nordstrom's Encore women's fashion department.

Mary Torres, a receptionist in Nordstrom's corporate offices, used to be an administrative assistant in Frederick & Nelson's legal department. Of course, some things have changed. The executive-office area she used to work in on the second floor has been turned into a stock room for women's fashions.

Other parts of the store will look familiar. William Stine, the former Frederick & Nelson doorman, will be returning as the new Nordstrom doorman.

Deal stirred controversy

The new Nordstrom store, which executives expect to generate more than $100 million in annual sales, has not been without controversy.

The $400 million deal that led to Nordstrom moving into the old F&N building drew criticism for its use of federal Housing and Urban Development money to clean up a so-called blighted area. City officials also came under scrutiny for agreeing to pay $23 million more for the adjacent Pacific Place public garage than the estimated $50 million it cost to build.

But others praised Nordstrom for its investment in a project that has triggered interest in other downtown retail developments.

"We're much better off with them (Nordstrom) doing what they did than vacating downtown," said Bon Marche Chairman Dan Edelman. The Bon recently announced plans for a multimillion-dollar renovation of its downtown store next year, a move it said was partly in response to the new competition from Nordstrom and Pacific Place.

This week will be shakedown time as Nordstrom prepares for the Friday opening. Some new shipments of clothing are going directly to the new store. The saltwater and freshwater fish tanks on the children's-wear floor have been filled with fish. And Nordstrom also has begun testing some of the new store's facilities. It has been serving meals from its Grill and Cafe Nordstrom restaurants to employees and guests. It recently opened its espresso bar on Pine Street to the public.

Executives have already started occupying their offices. Nordstrom has office employees scattered in various downtown locations. The new store will allow it to consolidate many of them in one location. Others will move to a 25-story office building to be developed next year with Clise Properties at nearby Seventh Avenue and Olive Way.

The new store will be the company's corporate headquarters.

"We have built large stores before, but we have never built a very large store and put a very large office space within the store in a downtown core," said Vicki Kolmodin, Nordstrom office-planning manager. The store will house 1,200 corporate and Washington regional employees on the fifth through 10th floors above the main retail floors.

The sales-promotion staff moved to the seventh floor on June 29. Chairman John Whitacre and the six Nordstrom co-presidents are moving in this weekend.

The last group to move in will be the 300-person Nordstrom Product Group, which is responsible for the company's private-label merchandise. They will move in December from the Kress Building at Third and Pike.