Fashion retailers Aritzia and White House Black Market are building-out at St. Johns Town Center with permits issued last week by the city.
The stores are side-by-side in space vacated by J. Crew and Loft, which are moving to other storefronts.
The city issued a permit April 4 for JRM Construction Management Florida LLC of Boca Raton to build-out the 8,344-square-foot Aritzia space at 4751 River City Drive, Unit 101, at a cost of $2.58 million.
The permit follows one issued Feb. 12 for landlord Simon Property Group to prepare the shell space at a cost of $268,000 for the Canadian retailer. It is Aritzia’s first store in the market.
Capital Construction Services of Fishers, Indiana, was the contractor for that portion.
Enovative Technologies Inc. of Jacksonville is the permitting agent.
The Aritzia lease left space for another tenant in Unit 107, which is where White House Black Market is building-out.
The city issued a permit April 1 for Marco Contractors of Warrendale, Pennsylvania, to build-out 3,434 square feet of space at a cost of $500,000.
White House Black Market is temporarily operating in a space near Nordstrom. Alo Yoga took the former White House Black Market was moved near Nordstrom.
J. Crew is relocating to the former Altar’d State store. Altar’d State moved into a larger store.
Loft, temporarily in the former Copper Closet space, will move into the store formerly used by Bath & Body Works, which relocated to a larger storefront.
Aritzia sells clothing, shoes, accessories and gifts. It started in 1984 inside the Hill family’s department store in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and then Brian Hill opened the first stand-alone boutique in a Vancouver mall.
Aritzia opened in the U.S. in 2007.
Its 117 stores include 51 in the U.S. It shows three in Florida in Miami, Orlando and Tampa.
It says it has identified more than 100 locations in the U.S. that meet its criteria.
Aritzia carries its own brands, including Babaton, Wilfred, Tna, Sunday Best and Super World, as well as others such as Levi’s, Citizens of Humanity, Calvin Klein, New Balance, G.H. Bass and Dr. Martens.
It also has expanded into menswear.
Women’s fashion retailer White House Black Market has two area stores. One is at St. Johns Town Center and an outlet in the St. Augustine Premium Outlets.
White House Black Market is part of Fort Myers-based Chico’s FAS. Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm, bought Chico’s FAS in January.
Women’s clothing retailer Chico’s also has a store at St. Johns Town Center as well as in Sawgrass Village in Ponte Vedra Beach and the Shops at Amelia Island Plantation in Fernandina Beach.
The new White House Black Market space is next to another Chico’s FAS brand, the Soma lingerie, loungewear and apparel store.