Target sets up in Galleria

DOWNTOWN GLENDALE — A big red bull’s-eye is beckoning Glendale shoppers to the corner of Central Avenue and Colorado Boulevard, where mixed-merchandise mega-store Target opens for business today.

The national retailer fills the 180,000-square-foot space left in the Glendale Galleria by Robinsons-May, which closed more than a year ago.

Situated at the southwest corner of the shopping center, the store is Minneapolis, Minn.-based Target’s first branch to have three floors, store team leader Leo Padron said.

“It’s huge,” Glendale resident Graciella Galindo said.

Galindo was among a group of employee friends and family members invited to the store on Tuesday night for a special pre-opening party and a chance at first dibs on inventory.

A dozen teenagers and young adults, including Eagle Rock resident JC Santos, 20, flocked to the electronics department to get their hands on a Nintendo Wii video game console.

“I’ve been trying to find this for months,” Santos said, as he wrapped his arms around the game package as if to protect it from other shoppers.

But Galindo, who had a trio of youngsters in tow, skipped the complimentary hors d’oeuvres and coffee drinks from the in-store Starbucks and took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping.

She plans to buy her food-stuffs at the new Glendale Target instead of driving to the Eagle Rock Target, where she usually goes for groceries, Galindo said.

The vast array of discount consumer items stocked on the store’s shelves makes it a convenient one-stop-shop for Glendale residents, said Judee Kendall, Glendale Chamber of Commerce executive vice president.

“I think there are people that like to go to one place to find all of their products,” Kendall said.

“There are people who are very dedicated Target shoppers. I think it’ll work just fine.”

Other Galleria tenants are hoping the store will generate more foot traffic to the rest of the mall, said Jeff Paige, manager of the Galleria JCPenney.

But it’s the other kind of traffic that has some critics concerned, he said.

“I think it’s good for the Galleria … it brings added traffic,” Paige said. “I’m just not sure the city is ready for the parking. Time will tell.”

The Galleria did not add parking spaces with Target’s opening because the store is the same size as Robinsons-May, said Janet LaFevre, senior marketing manager for Galleria owner General Growth Properties Inc.

The mall has two parking facilities with 6,800 total parking spaces, LaFevre said.

General Growth implements an off-site parking system for its more than 4,000 employees during the mall’s busy holiday season, LaFevre said.

During most of the year, when the mall’s employee base is closer to 3,000, mall workers park on the top floor of both parking structures, leaving first- and second-floor parking to shoppers, she said.

If Target brings as much vehicular traffic as it does foot traffic, General Growth is prepared to tackle a new parking solution, but none are currently planned, she said.

In the meantime, shoppers like Rod Lopez are hailing the store as a welcome addition to the downtown retail landscape and a noted supplier of local jobs.

“Hopefully it will do something good for the community, with more jobs and everything,” said Lopez, a custodian at Hoover High.

“A lot of people in south Glendale don’t have transportation access and this is good walking distance to a lot of places.”

The store has about 350 employees, 80% of which were hired locally, Padron said.

Though the store is the first three-floor Target, it’s not necessarily the chain’s largest location, he said.

“We’re a normal Target,” he said.

The store is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Sunday.