The Target store at the Jantzen Beach Supercenter mall in North Portland will close Saturday and await demolition as contractors continue to work on a larger replacement store that’s set to open in October.
“The existing store is going to shift and be where the parking lot is now,” said Molly Snyder, a spokeswoman for Minneapolis-based Target Corp.
The replacement store will reopen four months from now, carrying fresh groceries including produce, packaged meats, eggs and dairy products as part of Target’s expansion into the food business, Snyder said. So far this year, Target has remodeled about half of its 1,764 stores to carry groceries, she added.
Retail experts don’t expect the temporary closure of the Target, which anchors a mall that’s popular with Clark County shoppers, to hurt the overall sales at the Jantzen Beach Supercenter on the southwest end of the Interstate 5 Bridge. The complex is undergoing a $50 million makeover that will give it an open-air concept similar to Portland’s IKEA-anchored Cascade Station on Airport Way.
“It (the Jantzen Beach remodel) is a natural transition,” said Deborah Ewing, a broker and vice president with Eric Fuller & Associates commercial real estate firm.
Improved accessibility
The work is also aimed at improving accessibility to existing retailers by tearing down the old Target store. The building was originally a two-story department store for Montgomery Ward, which closed in 2001 after the Chicago-based retailer announced it was going out of business. The Jantzen Beach store was retrofitted for Target in 2002.
Snyder said the Jantzen Beach Target employs between 150 and 200 workers who may qualify to work at one of the chain’s other local stores during construction.
“The vast majority of them will be eligible to transfer to other stores,” she said.
At 138,000 square feet, the new Target store will be slightly larger than most Target stores, which typically have about 135,000 square feet of space, Snyder said.
Clearing away the old Target will remove what now appears as an obstacle blocking the center’s cluster of outdoor anchor stores from motorists entering on North Tomahawk Drive, Ewing said. The center’s remodel will replace the old Target store with parking for the new store and plans also call for extending North Tomahawk Drive west into the complex as a direct route from Interstate 5.
“I think what they’ve done with the parking is right on,” Ewing said.
The shopping center’s owner, Columbia, S.C.-based Edens, has said it will pare down some of the interior space of the original Jantzen Beach mall. Plans call for continuing to display and operate an antique carousal that has long been associated with the area, a former amusement park.
The original mall will shrink to a 100,000-square-foot space that allows shoppers outside access to its stores, including an attached Burlington Coat Factory. That would be in keeping with the most recent direction for the mall’s design, which boasts a variety of major retailers circling a central parking area.
Jantzen Beach tenants include Ross Dress for Less, which recently moved out of the former mall into space once occupied by Linens ‘n Things. Other tenants include Old Navy, Staples, Sports Authority, Best Buy, Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Michaels, Petco, Pier 1 Imports and Home Depot. The Burlington Coat Factory has been updated with a new entrance facing the east parking lot.
