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Anime store caters to kids of all ages Date: 12/21/2009 |
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Rebecca Logan I suspect you'd have to be a serious Hello Kitty enthusiast to want her face on your toaster. Of course, I also know that the cute little gal with the bow on her head does indeed have such fans. After all, she's celebrating her 35th birthday this year. So if you're in the market for a Hello Kitty toaster - or just about anything Hello Kitty you might think of - there's a hefty selection of same at Happy Tiger. That's the store that opened last week next to Food Lion in Westwood Shopping Center. Now, if the feline is a little too girly for you, there's always Naruto or dozens of other characters in the store, which is focused largely on anime. In addition to anime extras such as T-shirts, key chains and figurines, Happy Tiger has Asian movies, TV shows and games for rent or for sale. The owners, newlyweds David Chen and Jennie Lamia, recently moved to the area from Hawaii and decided Fayetteville could support a family-focused anime store. By the way, Chen's uncle runs a jewelry business in Hawaii, which is why at Happy Tiger shoppers will also see a jewelry display with plenty of pineapples and turtles. Anna's is on Aha. There's finally some news on Anna's Linens. You'll recall that it was back in January that I'd mentioned how Anna's Linens - a chain of nearly 260 stores that sell bedding, mattress pads, shower curtains, towels, window curtains, drapes, cookware and housewares - had posted a help-wanted ad on Yahoo's jobs site. The ad said the chain was opening a new store in Fayetteville. A few months later I reported that the landlord who had dealt with Anna's understood the potential deal was on hold, if not off. Well, it's back on. And now it's official. Anna's signed a lease last week with C&S Commercial Properties for the former C.J. Woodmaster Store in Cross Creek Plaza on Skibo Road. (For newcomers, that's the spot where the Spirit Halloween store hung its hat this year.) Scott Gladstone, chief operating officer of California-based Anna's, said the Fayetteville store should open in February. Thoughts from afar I asked Gladstone about the delay. He said the macro-economic conditions from this past year have had an effect on retailers' "appetite for risk." "We've been taking second and third looks at every store that we had identified for opening," Gladstone said. "And some stores that we had planned for 2009 and 2010 have fallen out of our real estate schedule because they didn't meet a tougher hurdle." Fayetteville, however, made it over the bar. "With the population density, and the demographics and the proximity to the base, it really lines up to be very attractive for Anna's Linens," Gladstone said. "It's a market that we feel, honestly, is under-retailed." Why? Gladstone said a lot of the modeling systems that retailers use to select their spots rely on data that "doesn't really quantify the potential of the military base and the economic impact that base actually has." So what's the fix? "It's an education that has to occur on both sides," he said, talking not only about landlords and brokers but the retailers, too. "If you start mapping out stores that you have near military bases," he said, "often times retailers will find that those stores are performing above what is expected or planned based upon the raw demographics." There you go, local leasing agents or city promotion types. You all can just go ahead and clip out Gladstone's last quote. Consider it my Christmas gift to you. End expanding Let's change gears from Anna's and its linens to Ann and her fabrics. Ann Lewis is owner of the Mill End Store in Tallywood Shopping Center, a longtime Fayetteville business that's about to grow. "When we moved over here 14 years ago we thought we'd be getting a bigger space," said Lewis. But a bigger space never materialized until recently when her next-door neighbor, Promark Fitness, closed its doors. Lewis said she's taking about half of the gym's former space. The move is allowing her to add a new work room and space for sample books. And that means the Mill End Store will add back into the mix some custom upholstery work, along with the drapes, bedspreads and such that it does now. "I was actually thinking about retiring," Lewis said. "But when I had the chance to do this, I said heck no. Not now. This is just too exciting." Just checking A couple of you have asked why crews are clearing land along Glensford Drive, across from Kohl's. That land is in a forestry program and has to be cleared every so often, said Butch Dunlap, vice president and broker-in-charge for the land's owner, C&S Commercial Properties. It's nothing more interesting than that, Dunlap assured me when I ran into him Tuesday at the groundbreaking for a new Hilton brand of extended-stay hotels, Home2 Suites. By the way, here's a little tidbit that didn't make it into the story I wrote about the future hotel on Sycamore Dairy Road. I asked Christopher Nassetta, the CEO of the entire 3,400-hotel Hilton chain, whether he thought (like I did) that the room designs for the Home2 Suites has "a bit of an IKEA feel." He said no. Another kiosk There's another Cross Creek Mall kiosk to mention - one that moved into the J.C. Penney wing - toward the end of the season. All About Kids has dolls, puzzles, books and other toys for young children. I happened to notice a Sesame Street "Count" puppet in that kiosk the other day. That would have sent me over the edge as a child. I had an irrational fear of the purple Muppet. Price check I need to correct an error I made last week. While talking about Bowties, Ribbons and Lace, the new formal boutique inside Belmont Village on Hay Street, I said the boutique carries dresses with price tags ranging from about $600 to $1,400. I should have said prices range from about $250 to $1,400. So, if you thought the boutique was out of your budget, it actually might not be. Sorry for the mistake. Bowties, Ribbons and Lace's owner, Rhonda Whaley, said some of the dresses that she sells in the $250 range are lovely to wear just as they are, but that some customers might have them embellished by MHR Designs to make them look as if they cost at least $600. Glitterati Speaking of MHR Designs, apparently my mentioning its business with Bowties Ribbons and Lace prompted some of you to call MHR and ask if it would be moving out of its space on Hope Mills Road. No. No. No. As a matter of fact, MHR founder Marie Rudolph said she's in the middle of an expansion there. In a new little building behind MHR's showroom of costume jewelry, there's an entire 800-square-foot pageant room under construction. Rudolph said that should be ready by January with plans for a big opening event in February. So just what will a pageant room look like? Pink and purple walls. Glitter on the ceiling. Swarovski crystals on the light fixtures. In other words, Rudolph, "sparkle upon sparkle upon sparkle." Tick tock You've now got fewer than six shopping days left. Hope that what comes after that is a great one. |
| Source: FayObserver.com |
