City Sports Concept Store Opening January in Suburban Square

In the past few weeks, construction has finally started to clear in front of the  location at  in Ardmore. Customers are again able to walk through parts of the shopping center’s courtyard, and recently, City Sports covered the windows of the former Talbots with large promotional posters.

“We will have a much more interactive experience for our customers,” said Keiko Kimball, manager of the Suburban Square City Sports. “There will be a lot more for the customer to do instead of just shop.”

Kimball explained that the new City Sports concept will involve a unique shopping experience, featuring “iPad stations,” or kiosks, for online ordering and technical information on the store’s products—or simply to listen to the music playing in the store.

The kiosks allow consumers to “view inventory, promotional coupons and look up their accounts via the tablet,” according to an article in Mobile Commerce Daily. The trade publication said the service “lets companies synchronize and manage data and deliver content to customers” while shoppers are actually in the store.

The iPads will also direct customers to local Main Line running clubs, among other features.

City Sports has been opening new locations in and around Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. for the past year or so. Existing stores are undergoing extensive renovations, adopting the concept of the newly opened stores. The Ardmore store, because it is moving just a stone's throw from its current spot, will be a combination of the two.

“Unlike the traditional sporting good stores, we skew higher with female customers and serious runners.”— Michael Mosca, executive VP, City Sports

As reported here earlier, the  was the first to be built with the new concept in mind. The Philly locations following shortly after.

This past summer, the 16th and Walnut location in Center City was given the new treatment, receiving a substantial facelift while using the concept of the new “concept” to help pay for it. It’s a sort of new take on the tried-and-true “pardon the inconvenience while we improve” model.

Last month, the , using the new concept from the start.

Michael Mosca, executive vice president of marketing at City Sports, explained that when opening the new Georgetown location, “it was the first time we really examined how we might want to change the design of the store based on some of our key categories, really speaking to specific customers.”

The new business model was developed after “looking at the parts of our business that are really critical to us and asking ourselves how we can improve,” Mosca said.

“Certainly everything we are focused on is a reflection on trends in the business. We didn’t react to competitors. With our women’s assortment and footwear, unlike the traditional sporting good stores, we skew higher with female customers and serious runners.”

‘We like the exposure’

Ardmore shoppers can expect the same experience as the Center City or Wayne locations, Mosca said, adding that the goal is to be a one-stop destination for City Sports’ target demographic. 

“Across the company, we try to be really consistent,” he said. “We want to be sure that our customer can take everything off of their lists.”

In moving across the courtyard in Suburban Square to the old Talbots space, City Sports will take on a lot more square footage, meaning more selection for customers and a more prominent showcase for management.

“It just made sense for us to make the move,” Mosca said. “I think we will have the advantage of keeping our original customer base, and the Philadelphia market in general is one we really like.”

Added Kimball, “The new store will still carry the same brands, nothing completely new to the company, but will carry more styles, colors and sizes.”

As Mosca alluded to, the new location will focus heavily on footwear, along with a “women’s shop,” with female-specific training clothes, yoga gear, and an extensive sports bra collection. The footwear collection will also be much more visible.

“Some of our key categories were downstairs in our existing location, which is slightly unusual,” Mosca said, happy that the new place will have its athletic shoes on the first floor. “The windows will be very open to Montgomery [Avenue] and we want to capitalize on there being so much traffic on the street. We want people to peer in and see our footwear ... We like the exposure.”

Taking over the old spot?

An offer has yet to be made by another retailer for the existing Ardmore City Sports location, management said recently, though that could change any day now—Suburban Square, despite some recent high-profile closures this year of national retailers, still enjoys an occupancy rate well over 90 percent. (Besides, as Kimball speculated, curb appeal for the store has been pretty hampered of late, since ongoing construction in the shopping center has been present since August.)

The new City Sports location is expected to debut in mid-January, with advertising planned for a week or two prior to opening.