IRDC San Francisco: Save the Date!

The sixth annual edition of the International Retail Design Conference, presented by VM+SD, takes place Sept. 6-8, 2006, in one of the world’s favorite destinations: San Francisco. This year’s conference will convene at the historic Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill and features IRDC’s usual top-shelf mix of brilliant keynote speakers, interactive breakout sessions and numerous networking opportunities – including IRDC’s innovative and popular roundtable discussions.

Programming is currently under development, but we can tell you it will feature iconographic West Coast retailers and sessions on visual merchandising, store planning, lighting, materials, branding and other topics of interest to the retail design community.

IRDC will not be the only retail attraction in San Francisco this fall. The city itself will be a hotbed of retail activity, inviting exploration by anyone eager to see how retail is meeting urban challenges of the 21st Century. San Francisco retail is preparing for the opening of the Westfield San Francisco Center (designed by RTKL, Baltimore), a massive football-field-long venue located on Market Street. The Center is an expansion of the existing multi-level mall anchored by Nordstrom and will preserve the historic dome and façade of the 19th Century Emporium department store immediately adjacent to the Center. The 700,000-square-foot mall will feature some new upscale retail tenants, a nine-screen Century Theatres, new multi-star eateries (it is San Francisco after all), a food court and a 357,000-square-foot West Coast flagship for Bloomingdale’s – the retailer’s biggest outside of the Lexington Avenue store in New York – designed by RYA Design Consultancy (Dallas).

In anticipation of the arrival of that legendary fashion department store, and gearing up for retail wars in general, the big four Union Square-area stores – Macy’s, Saks, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom – are all undergoing renovations and face-lifts. Macy’s has greatly expanded its extensive second-floor shoe department, and Neiman’s rotunda and cosmetics department are being repaved with gleaming white marble as a years-in-the-making renovation is wrapped up. San Francisco is among the 10 biggest markets for each of these chains, so pocketbooks have been opened and design solutions will be world-class. The continuing importance of the urban flagship store will undoubtedly be a topic of discussion at the conference.

Lots of exciting new retail outposts have opened in the Union Square area and adjacent streets, including two H&M locations, along with Zara, Forever 21, Lush and Stuart Weitzman. These popular stores join many other chains (Urban Outfitters, Victoria’s Secret, Williams- Sonoma, Levi’s, Nike, Gap) and unique-to-San Francisco Gump’s, resulting in an especially dense and richly rewarding retail landscape.

To the west of downtown, Union and Fillmore streets combine scores of one-of-a-kind retail concepts and better-known names, such as Jonathan Adler, with cafés, restaurants and service establishments for an authentic neighborhood shopping experience.

All these stores and more – plus a banquet table of a conference – will be part of the total retail experience for attendees at IRDC this fall in San Francisco.

For more information and to sign up for email updates, visit www.irdconline.com.