Could Short Pump Town Center be losing its top anchor retailer?
Nordstrom announced Tuesday night that it will close 16 of its 116 full-line retail stores, and a national fashion magazine is reporting that the company’s Short Pump Town Center location is among them.
The high-end fashion retailer was an original tenant at the mall when it opened in September 2003 and has been a fixture there ever since.
But fashion-industry trade journal Women’s Wear Daily reported Tuesday that sources indicated that the Short Pump store and those in Naples, Florida; Flatiron Crossing, Colorado; and West Farm, Connecticut were among the “high-profile locations” scheduled to be closed permanently.
Short Pump Town Center officials were not immediately available for comment.
After learning about the possible closure from the Citizen Wednesday night, a Short Pump Nordstrom employee contacted the publication to say that employees had received an email from the store’s general manager inviting them to participate in an optional conference call Thursday morning about “important business changes.”
“A lot of employees are devastated by this possible news,” the employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Citizen. “We are very upset as employees to learn of this from the news . . . before we heard it from Nordstrom. Nordstrom has built their reputation to be seen as taking care of their employees and valuing them over anything else, and these actions would make it hard to continue to believe that. ”
The Short Pump store employs about 130 people, according to the employee.
Nordstrom stores have been closed since mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, although the retailer has offered contact-free curbside services at its full-line stores, which operate in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.
Nordstrom also operates 247 Nordstrom Rack locations, five Nordstrom Local service hubs, five Trunk Club clubhouses, three Jeffrey boutiques and two clearance stores.
The Seattle Times reported that Nordstrom had closed five of its full-line stores since January 2019, when it had 121.