La Center’s Tina Asburry loyally shopped at the Nordstrom at the Westfield Vancouver mall for three decades, until the store closed Saturday. Two to three times per week, she went shopping at the store on her way home from working at the Clark County Clerk’s Office.
“It’s not going to change where I shop,” Asburry, 55, said. “It’s just going to make it more inconvenient for me.”
Asburry said she now plans to shop at Nordstrom’s Clackamas Town Center location to find the store’s quality clothing and superior customer service, including personal shoppers and returns without a receipt.
The closure of the 71,000-square-foot store could be seen as a loss in the effort to build Vancouver’s identity as a destination for upper middle-class residents.
“This is, in my opinion, the challenge of Clark County, and for me, it’s a much bigger issue in that Clark County essentially lives in the shadow of Portland,” said local entrepreneur Jeff Shafer, who owns Ridgefield-based Agave Denim, a nationally recognized brand for high-end denim apparel. “Portland has a vibrant retail community, and it has a vibrant restaurant community. At this point, there are great restaurants and retail in Clark County, but people who are looking for a higher level of retail or higher level of restaurant are going into Portland for that.”
Nordstrom announced last year that it would close the Vancouver store, an anchor at the mall since 1977, and a larger 150,000-square-foot store in Portland’s Lloyd Center this month, describing them as among its lowest performers.
The mall hopes to announce soon a new tenant for a portion of the store, said Chris Yates, marketing director for Westfield Vancouver mall. Westfield is in active negotiations on other space in the Nordstrom building, Yates said.
If the closure has any significance to Vancouver’s identity, it may be to seal it as firmly middle class, but there were other forces at work that may have contributed to the store’s departure, local experts said.
“I think it’s more that retailers have a better understanding of the market rather than that the local market is diminishing,” said Ron Pimentel, an expert in consumer behavior at Washington State University Vancouver who used to do market research for California-based Mervyn’s department stores, the last department store to leave Vacnouver mall.
Clark County consumers often take their buying power to Portland where there is no sales tax. Add to that: More people are shopping online and mall shopping has lost popularity, making department stores reassess how they use their resources, Pimentel said.
In the upscale clothing market, “there are changes in the business climate in terms of a shift away from the more traditional stores to some of the smaller high-end stores like Willows,” said Kelly Love, president of the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce. “There is a changing market in apparel, and Nordstrom is part of the traditional market.”
Upscale boutique stores such as Willows in Vancouver’s Grand Central shopping center and Lily Atelier in Camas have found a strong following here, and Nordstrom’s departure may provide even more opportunities for them, Shafer said.
Janna Moats, co-owner of Willows, said she’s personally sad to lose the Vancouver Nordstrom. She noted that many Clark County residents already shopped at the Portland locations.
“There are so many Nordstroms in Portland, and honestly, the better selection of merchandise is in Portland, so I think there are a lot of people who went to Portland anyway, but it was a great way to run in and grab your basics, makeup and that kind of thing,” Moats said.
The median income is $58,225 in Clark County and even lower in the Vancouver city limits.
“In many ways, Clark County has a stellar image. It’s a great place to work and play. It has lots of major department stores for a place of its size,” Love said. “The closure of Nordstrom will have some impact for people who look at Nordstrom as a moniker type of store. It won’t have an impact on everybody. There are lots of people who don’t shop there.”
Stores such as Nordstrom designate status. Pimentel recalls that in the 1980s, people would often buy shopping bags at Nordstrom and then do their shopping at other department stores.
“Consumers in Clark County may just be more comfortable shopping at J.C. Penney and, when they get fancy, they go to Macy’s,” Pimentel said.
Love said that on the whole, Vancouver has seen more stores come in than leave.
“But we’ve lost high-end stores like Nordstrom and Best Buy, and that’s partly related to the sales tax issue,” she said.
Despite a river for a border and separate state governments, Clark County is in many ways still just an extension of Portland. Many Clark County residents commute to Portland for work. Shopping there may be equally as convenient as shopping at home, and there’s the extra allure of no sales tax in Oregon.
“From the chamber perspective, we believe there is the impact of sales tax, and people leaving to (Portland) to buy tax-free takes away from the money we could put toward local fire and police,” Love said. “On the other hand, about 70,000 people go across the river to Portland every day. It’s hard to have a black-and-white line. Our identity as a marketplace being tied to Portland, we don’t really consider that river to be anything more than just a river.”
