admin//February 27, 2004//
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Fashion hungry 30-somethings in the market for bohemian chic will soon have a new place to shop. Anthropologie, the younger sister of Philadelphia-based Urban Outfitters Inc., is slated to open a store in Towson Town Center this summer. From wrought iron wine racks to lace underwear, Anthropologie prides itself on the eclectic mix of its merchandise. The store caters to educated women in their 20s and 30s with plenty of dispensable income. The company’s target shoppers have average annual incomes of about $90,000. The typical 6,000-square-foot store is packed full, flea market style, of everything from clothing and accessories to housewares and furniture — much of it with distinctly ethnic origins. The Towson store is the second Anthropolgie store in Maryland. The first is on Rockville Pike in Montgomery County.The addition is part of larger expansion plans Urban Outfitters initiated two years ago, said Dawn Stoner, an analyst who follows the company for Pacific Growth Equities.“In 2000 through 2002, the company’s growth rate was in the mid to high teens, this year it is a 22-percent growth,” she said. “I’m thinking it’s a function of the company getting more coverage in the marketplace. It is being approached more by developers anxious to get them in.”There are currently 114 Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters stores open, though this year’s plans call for an additional 23 stores, about half of them Anthropologie shops. A mall setting is relatively new for Anthropologie stores, which are usually located in urban street settings or in the strip mall centers that are closer to where customers live. “But once in a while you will see an Anthropologie in a top-tier, high-traffic, affluent mall,” Stoner said. “They are still careful about the location, though.”Patrick Walsh, vice president and general manager of the Towson center, acknowledged the company is picky but said the two are a perfect fit. The mall’s trade area, which reaches into Baltimore City and as far as the Pennsylvania line, encompasses a half-million people with an average income of $77,000. Urban Outfitters stores, on the other hand, are increasingly being located in malls, since that is where the store’s teen and young adult demographic can be found, Stoner said.Urban Outfitters has grown slowly since the company’s inception in the 1970s. Banana Republic, for example, its major competitor, was founded in 1978 with two stores and a catalog. Now a division of Gap Inc., it has close to 300 stores. Ultimately, Stoner said, Urban Outfitters plans to reach 400 stores.The company reported total sales of $176.12 million in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 31, up 50 percent from one year earlier. Shares of Urban Outfitters stock closed Friday at $43.61, down 0.25 percent.
