After a year of speculation and rumors and several years of public lamenting about the lack of apparel retail space in Long Beach, locals can rejoice: H&M will be opening at The Pike come Spring 2015.

The store’s location at 72 Aquarium Way, next door to the Cold Stone Creamery, marks another step—albeit a very slow and long-coming one—toward the goal of making the desolate area an outlet mall (despite the fact that H&M doesn’t operate outlets).

“Long Beach was chosen as California is one of H&M’s strongest markets and the demand for more stores is always high there, especially in the south,” said H&M representative Patrick Shaner.

EWB Development–the nation’s largest outlet developer–quietly created a small webpage last year that not only renamed the complex (“The Outlets at The Pike”) but touts that the Pike shopping complex will be the new outlet hub for Los Angeles County and Southern California.

While it still remains unclear how Vermont-based EWB became attached to the Ohio-based DDR-owned property that is home to 330,000 sq. ft. of retail space, it was quite clear that outlets are the newest attempt to reinvigorate the desolate space. A Restoration Hardware replaced what used to be the Club V2O nightclub, taking up one of 21 available spaces, of which EWB has listed Sperry, Coach, J. Crew, and a variety of others as coming soon.

H&M is the second new store that is officially set to open at The Pike.

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