What Cupertino Wants: Books, Apple Store, Gap, CPK

This week I’d like to give a summary of the suggestions that have been coming from Cupertino. I started writing these articles in Cupertino Patch in mid-January to help gather business suggestions from the community to Spotmojo, which I’m a co-founder.

Various Patch sites have been running these types of articles where they feature a vacant retail space and ask readers what they would like to see there. However, Patch doesn’t act on those suggestions and relies on its readers to take the next step. However, Spotmojo does act on these suggestions.

I’ll briefly explain the business model of Spotmojo. The idea is fairly straightforward. We collect suggestions from the community on the types of businesses they want. When we’ve reached a valid sample, we’ll begin looking for those businesses. We just launched late last year and are still in our testing phase so we haven’t started charging anyone for our services, but eventually the plan is to charge either new businesses and/or commercial real estate brokers for the reports.

In Cupertino we haven’t reached a valid sample yet so we haven’t started our outreach. We need about 200 more users to participate before we begin that. We’ll be looking for other ways to reach people in Cupertino.

However, in the city of Alameda we’re inches away from reaching a valid sample. We have began to reach out to businesses there and have been talking to brewpubs, salad bar operators, and Korean restaurants. Opening a retail or restaurant business is a very big investment so it takes time for them to do the research and decide.

We’ve featured several properties in Cupertino that are very different. We’ve featured Vallco Shopping Mall which is an older mall that has been in a long decline and has a very high vacancy rate.

And then we covered the upcoming Main Street which is expected to have more upscale shops.

And then we covered some neighborhood shopping centers like the former Petsmart at Cupertino Crossing and the under-reconstruction DeAnza/85 neighborhood shopping center.

Since these shopping centers are so different, I’ll separate the results since the suggestions were geared towards those themes.

Vallco Shopping Mall

The top 10 suggestions are:

1. Bookstore
2. Apple Store
3. Gap
4. Old Navy
5. Barnes & Noble
6. H&M
7. Kid’s Play Area
8. California Pizza Kitchen 
9. Maternity
10. Children’s Place
11. (Improve the Entry/Exit)
12. Dollar Store
13. Indian Boutique Shop
14. Japanese Bookstore

Just beneath that were: Plus Size Women’s Apparel, Indian Grocery, Indian Food, Container Store, Ann Taylor Loft, Sporting Goods, Forever 21.

Bookstore

Regarding bookstores, I think it was very sad to see so many close in the last few years. Of course we know exactly why. Amazon with its lower margins, free two-day shipping, and more recently Kindle e-books have put countless independent and national bookstores out of business.

But many of you are well aware of the challenges in the book retailing business and suggested ideas like Books Inc or a used bookstore which has a different model and can survive in today’s market.

Apple Store

Another popular suggestion, no surprise, is a lot of people want an Apple store. It is interesting that there isn’t one in their own hometown. I remember the video where the late Steve Jobs was presenting the designs of the new Apple campus to the city council.

The city council asked him when there will be an Apple store in Cupertino, but he said Cupertino just doesn’t have the foot traffic. That is disappointing, but I understand that point of view as well. Perhaps if either Vallco gets its mojo back or if Main Street is a hit, then hopefully Apple will finally open a store in Cupertino.

Apparel

Many of the other suggestions were geared toward apparel brands like Gap, Old Navy, H&M, Maternity, and a nicer Macy’s. It doesn’t seem to be asking a lot since these stores seem to be standard in every mall.

Perhaps one of the reasons is because they have these stores at Valley Fair. My information may be a bit out-of-date, but in 2011 Gap began to close about 200 stores in the US and is instead focusing on overseas expansion. However, Macy’s, I believe, is doing very well.

It would take a lot of user participation on Spotmojo to convince a store as big as Macy’s to change anything, but it is possible.

Kid's Play Area

Another suggestion was for a better play area for kids. I think this is a great idea. Something like the padded play area at Valley Fair comes to mind, but that one is so crowded it’s almost dangerous.

Perhaps a larger one, or several of them in different parts of the mall. One user commented that the current coin operated rides aren’t really working because the change machines are often malfunctioning or other technical issues.  

It may seem obvious from the mall operators point of view to charge for everything. But many urban designers have suggested shopping centers need to be more than just places for shopping.

There needs to be other attractions like...a kid’s play area, live music, entertainment, book signings, etc...This would increase foot traffic including foot traffic from people who don’t think they have anything on their shopping list. But once they get there they’ll get thirsty, hungry, or they’ll stumble on a neat gift for someone.

Main Street

For Main Street, the suggestions were a lot more diverse. In other words, there were a lot of varying suggestions and less agreement. In a situation like this, we need a lot of participation to make it a valid sample so we start to see some agreement.

Some of the popular suggestions were:

1. Bookstore
2. Sur La Table
3. Jazz & Blues Bar
4. CafeBakery
5. Il Fornaio
6. Cards & Stationery Store

There were many more, but about the next 20 were basically tied.

Tell your friends!

We need at least 200 more users in or near Cupertino to make a valid sample. Tell your neighbors, friends, family about Spotmojo. Here are some links that you can send them that will bring them directly to certain spots in Cupertino.

Main Street: http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/mainst/

Vallco Shopping Mall: http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/vallco/

Homestead Square (new Safeway): http://www.spotmojo.com/openspot/homestead/