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Nike Puts Anchor In Revitalizing Downtown Detroit By Opening 'Community Store' on Woodward

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Nike has become the latest big brand willing to put a stake in the renaissance of downtown Detroit, with the opening today of its Nike Detroit Community Store in one of the old iconic retail buildings of the Motor City.

The Oregon-based athletic and lifestyle brand means to pitch into the reinvigoration of central Detroit with the opening of a 20,000-square-foot space in the former F.W. Woolworth Co. building on Woodward Avenue, smack inside the corridor that is being redeveloped by money men such as Dan Gilbert and Michael Ilitch -- and within a Ruthian home-run ball's distance of Comerica Park, Ford Field and the new Red Wings arena.

Nike's only owned outlet in the greater area has been a "factory store" in an outlet mall in suburban Auburn Hills, Mich., 35 miles away from downtown. It was time for the company known for a strong corporate-responsibility streak to do right by Detroit.

"As we looked at timing and availability and the economics of putting in a store, we're looking at and anticipating future growth and traffic and what we think the demographics are going to be," Christiana Shi, president of Nike Global Direct-to-Consumer, told me. "We'd rather come a little early or right on time than a little late. And we felt the time was right in Detroit."

As a Community Store, the new Nike outlet will have a few more bottom lines than just generating sales and profits for the company. The downtown Detroit store also is intended to serve as a significant employer and as another catalyst to a regeneration of the surrounding area through involvement with local schools and the contribution of many hours of volunteer time by Nike employees. It's also meant to spur athletic involvement of the citizenry and will explore relationships with the many professional and collegiate sports teams in the immediate vicinity and throughout Michigan.

"It serves a particular role in our [store] portfolio and in our communities," Shi explained. "We develop sport, and provide employment opportunities, in given communities and serve consumers by giving them access to Nike products and services. So we don't locate these stores in outlet malls, which are hard to get to with cars. Or in traditional power-retailing centers. We put them right in communities, and we're pretty selective about where we do it. Typically we'll be one of the earliest movers in an area where retail is accelerating; we are part of that."

Nike opened its first Community Store in Portland, Ore., in the Eighties, and over the last several years has opened others in economically downtrodden urban centers of east Los Angeles, South Chicago, New Orleans, the Flatbush section of Brooklyn and the Ivy City area of Washington, D.C.

Among the distinctives of Community Stores is that Nike attempts to hire at least 80 percent of the workers, and as close to 100 percent as possible, from within a five-mile radius of the store. In this case, that approach won't get Nike's recruiting dragnet outside of the city limits, so its payroll clearly will provide a direct boost to residents of Detroit per se.

"This makes it much more convenient or likely that a teen, or an athlete, in the community can get to work and we can provide on-the-job training and development, in roles from serving consumers to working in shipping and receiving." Shi declined to indicate wage levels or how many people the Detroit store will employ.

Nike also takes pains to design Community Stores to fit the pre-existing vibe of the area and to stock the outlets heavily with the apparel and other wares representing local teams from the pro sports down through college and also high schools.

And Nike will establish a "giving fund which we will direct very locally around the store," Shi said. The company said it's committed to investing 1.5 percent of its pre-tax income to "drive positive impact in communities." Nike "used to do more giving at nationally directed levels," she explained, "but now we establish a fund that each [Community] store can access and can put together grant proposals that can be used for very local purposes, such as resurfacing a basketball court in the community, or connecting with a local group and getting a running club going. They're in a radius around the store where our employees can actually help execute the project."

Overall, Shi said, the Detroit store will apply "the power of the combination of levers that we pull when we open one of these locations."