Gutting of a row of independent businesses on Providence’s eclectic Thayer Street is slated to begin early this month, making way for a popular clothing store that is part of a publicly traded chain.
Urban Outfitters, with 31 stores in the United States and Canada (and one in London), is expected to open this fall and benefit from a bevy of college students with a penchant for trendy fashions and money to burn.
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Meanwhile, the five businesses that occupied two floors and 7,200 square feet of space at 285 to 289 Thayer Street have already relocated or are planning to do so, according to Stephen Lewinstein, a Boston-based real estate developer and the building’s owner.
E.G. Photo has moved to 300 Thayer Street; Siam Square has reopened at a shopping plaza Lewinstein owns on Willett Avenue in East Providence; and Foreign Affair Warehouse is expected to open soon at 139 Point Street, near the Providence Children’s Museum.
Phillippe Maatouk, owner of Hot Pockets, said he hopes to open another Middle Eastern restaurant under a different name in the same neighborhood. Maatouk, who also owns Basha restaurant on Thayer Street, said he would have kept Hot Pockets “for another 50 years.” However, his lease expired.
The owner of Bo’s Taco Shack (formerly Taco Maker) said through his attorney that he is scouting some locations in Providence, but is unsure if he will reopen.
Lewinstein said he’s confident Urban Outfitters – which incorporated here in Feb. 1998 – will be a good fit for the larger East Side community.
”Urban Outfitters is a wonderful store,” Lewinstein said. In leasing the space, “I thought that they would add something to the college community and also the East Side.
”The store has universal appeal. There’s something in it for everybody.”
Urban Outfitters Inc. (Nasdaq: URBN) started in 1970 as a hippie head shop called the Free People’s Store at the edge of the University of Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia-based company went public in 1993, having built its reputation on so-called alternative clothing and hip housewares for the 18- to 25-year-old set. The parent company launched a second chain of Anthropologie stores (including a catalog and Web site) in 1992, targeting the 25- to 45-year-old customer. The company had net sales of $147.9 million for the nine months that ended Oct. 31, according to Security Exchange Commission filings.
This isn’t Urban Outfitters’ first attempt to enter the college-rich Providence market, according to Kenneth Dulgarian, owner of the College Hill Book Store and the Avon Cinema, a couple of Thayer Street landmarks. Dulgarian said he negotiated with the company about four years ago, but was unable to meet its space demands.
That another chain store is coming to roost on Thayer Street alongside The GAP, Starbucks Coffee, D’Angelo Sandwich Shop, Au Bon Pain, Dunkin Donuts, Store 24, and CVS appears to have ruffled few feathers so far.
Dulgarian, who owns the building occupied by Starbucks at 218 Thayer St., said a store like Urban Outfitters could be the antidote to encroaching competition from the Providence Place mall.
”I think there will be a synergy there with all the positive things happening,” Dulgarian said.
The uniqueness of Thayer Street remains in its one-of-a-kind offerings, Dulgarian said. “By the same token, you’ve got to go where the world is going.”
Critics will call Urban Outfitters a chain, “which sounds like a dirty word,” Dulgarian said. “Really, it’s just something new.”
”It’s always difficult to go from the old broom to the new broom,” he added.
Joe Pinto, director of the not-for-profit Thayer Street Business Association, said members have mixed emotions about the newcomer.
”It’s obviously pretty complicated. There’s no one particular way we feel about it,” Pinto said.
”We do like to support independent business owners on the street and it’s sad to see the businesses in that large building go,” he said. At the same time, Urban Outfitters “as a name and destination could be helpful for the economy of the street, increasing the amount of money thrown around by consumers.”
Pinto said he doesn’t share the concern of some Brown University students who have told him they fear a “larger chain-store invasion;” or the view of a recent East Side Monthly editorial that warned against expansion at the expense of the strip’s original flavor.
”We do have a Gap. We do have a Starbucks. But in no way do I think the chain stores will come to dominate the street,” Pinto said. “The street has always done best when it has a symbiotic mix of large stores and small independent stores.
”I don’t believe it’s in jeopardy,” Pinto said, adding “It’s obviously impossible for me to project ten years from now on Thayer Street and tell you what it will be like.”
