Nordstrom to shutter its store at Salem Center mall

Nordstrom will close its Salem Center mall location in April, more than 30 years after the department store helped turn downtown Salem into a shopping destination. About 130 employees will be affected.

The store, which opened in March 1980, will remain open through April 6, the company announced Wednesday.

"We’ve been fortunate to have the chance to serve so many customers at Salem Center over the past 37 years," Nordstrom president Jamie Nordstrom said.

"The decision to close a store is never one we take lightly. As we look for opportunities to grow our business and ensure we’re meeting the needs of our customers, we have to make decisions about where to invest our resources. Unfortunately, we don’t think investing in Salem Center is the best approach for us moving forward," Nordstrom said.

The company will work with employees to see if they're interested in placements elsewhere in the company, but those who don't accept another job will be offered a "separation package," said Nordstrom spokeswoman Emily Sterken.

Nordstrom owns the building at 420 Center St. NE, county records show.

"We're planning to sell the space," Sterken said.

Nordstrom still has stores in the Portland area: in downtown Portland, Clackamas Town Center and Washington Square in Tigard. The company also has six Nordstrom Rack stores in Oregon, including in Beaverton, Clackamas and Eugene. The Seattle company has 366 stores across the nation.

Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett said he will meet with city urban development officials to consider how to redevelop the space.

"Nordstrom was the anchor for that mall," Bennett said.

But the closure opens a door to other retailers that may be interested in Salem, the mayor said.

Still, the news disappointed him. Bennett thanked the company for its more than three-and-a-half decades of service to the community.

The Salem Center mall is a downtown centerpiece, boasting dozens of retailers and a food court. Besides Nordstrom, anchor retailers Ross and Kohl's fill out much of the space. Skybridges connect the mall to Macy's to the east and JCPenney to the west.

The announcement represents "a devastating blow to retail in the short-term in downtown Salem," said Curt Arthur, managing director of SVN Commercial Advisors.

"Typically, owning reduces your cost of occupancy long-term, making it easier to weather the bad times," Arthur said.

The closure is far from unprecedented: Online retailers like Amazon have grabbed market share from traditional brick-and-mortar outfits, fueling steep sales declines at department stores such as Nordstrom and Macy's, which closed its Lancaster Mall location in early 2017.

"The state of retail is the brown box on your doorstep," said Alex Rhoten, owner of Coldwell Banker Commercial Mountain West Real Estate.

"Nordstrom in Salem was one of the original stores, and Salem was lucky to land them in the beginning," Rhoten said. "As the company grew, they targeted high-income metro areas, and Salem most likely would not have made the cut."

"Consistent with other traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, Nordstrom is working to stay relevant in a growing e-commerce market," Nick Williams, chief executive of the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement.

Williams said the chamber will work with city officials to figure out how to best use the space Nordstrom is leaving behind.

Gerry Frank, the great-grandson of a Meier & Frank founder and who spearheaded the opening of the family's Salem store in 1955, called the Nordstrom closure "a loss for Salem."

"But it was inevitable," Frank said. "A store that size for them is not profitable. They’re great merchants. I don’t shop there a lot, but I follow them, and I know several of the Nordstrom family. In Portland, they were competitors of ours."

Meier & Frank was a large Oregon department store chain, with a location in downtown Salem.

Talk of Nordstrom coming to Salem started as early as July 1977. The store's 1980 opening was part of a broader, multi-million-dollar project to create a mall in downtown Salem, newspaper archives show.

From the archives:

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