Urban Outfitters is located at CityScape near West Washington Street and South Central Avenue. The store recently laid off 23 people, including 10 ASU students. (Stephanie Snyder/DD)
Freshman journalism major Patrick Ryan was one of 23 people recently laid off from the Urban Outfitters at CityScape. Including Ryan, 10 ASU students had their jobs terminated.
Ryan said he was never told his position was temporary.
“If it’s true, I’d be very disappointed that there was such a lack of communication between the hiring managers and employees,” Ryan said. “And (I) definitely do not think that’s fair to all of us who were under the impression we had a steady job to rely on throughout college.”
Ryan worked a total of five days and rearranged his spring semester schedule to allow for more time to work. Then he received an e-mail terminating him and 22 others because sales projections for the store were lower than expected.
“I just think it’s downtown — honestly there isn’t a whole lot going on down here,” Ryan said. “It’s not like there’s busloads of tourists just itching to explore Phoenix, and the business people who work downtown don’t exactly fit the store’s demographic.”
The recent layoffs from Urban Outfitters are not an indication of CityScape’s progress, according to George Olander, a finance professor from the W.P. Carey School of Business.
Olander said it was a poor choice for Urban Outfitters to put a store at CityScape in the first place since CitysScape needs more apartments and condominiums around it.
“Who lives there?” Olander said. “It’s kind of a Catch-22 thing. People won’t live there until there’s retail. But retail won’t come until people live there.”
Olander pointed out that the problem is downtown and its inability to attract permanent residents.
“They don’t have housing for it, they don’t have the nightlife for it,” Olander said. “If you go to downtown Phoenix, you have parking issues, you have transportation issues. It’s kind of isolated to a degree.”
Sophomore nursing major Jenny Gladstone said CityScape’s location contributes to its emptiness.
“A lot of people say it’s dead here,” Gladstone said. “I just think there’s a certain type of crowd it attracts. It’s probably a hard location.”
Gladstone said she applied for jobs at several places in CityScape only to hear that stores weren’t hiring because they weren’t receiving enough business.
Another problem facing CityScape is that no one knows about it and that prices are too high, Gladstone said.
“I haven’t seen any advertising for CityScape,” she said. “They could put a lot more things on sale to try to get more customers.”
The high prices probably keep students away from retailers like Urban Outfitters, Gladstone said. She goes to Urban Outfitters at least once a month and said the store is usually empty.
A current Urban Outfitters employee who wished to remain anonymous said the downtown location is not as busy as other locations.
“I don’t know if it’s downtown Phoenix in general because it’s not like a shopping destination,” the employee said. “It’s a lot of commercial buildings. People, when they’re here, they’re working and as soon as that’s over, they go.”
When asked about the recent layoffs, the employee said that they were only temporary employees hired for the holiday season. He also said that these employees were informed of their temporary status prior to hiring.
David Roderique, president of the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, said CityScape will be more successful after more retailers open. The opening of more stores and restaurants were held back due to difficulties getting permits, and construction was taking longer than expected.
“Once the entire complex is done and once all the pieces are there it will be a better attraction,” Roderique said. “If you add all these pieces people will have a greater reason to go.”
Contact the reporter at diangelea.millar@asu.edu
I’ve been to CityScape numerous times including jimmy johns, five guys, retail shops (especially charming charlie) and they’re far from pricy. Urban Outfitters is definitely known to not be a cheap retailer, but they don’t own CityScape, thus should not be the one to scare off residents of Phoenix. I’m not surprised they layed off employees, actually. With the recession going on, who wants to buy a $50 dollar shirt? of course they’re having a tough time making business.
“Olander said, ‘It’s kind of a Catch-22 thing. People won’t live there until there’s retail. But retail won’t come until people live there.’”
It’s actually become obvious that for downtown to thrive, it all hinges on adding residential capacity. Contrary to Olander’s claim, people will move here regardless of whether there’s retail next door to them, and there’s significant residential demand downtown at an affordable price point – but right now there’s very little residential supply in downtown at all, not to even mention affordable supply.
There are ways to fix this problem, but City Hall doesn’t seem to have the vision or competence to make it happen.
It sucks that people lost their jobs, but what else were they gonna do? They are not making enough to keep the staff. That’s how any business works. They could have been more tactful, but what do you expect from a retail corporation. It sucks!
I don’t think a lack of housing is the issue, or affordable housing for that matter. As someone that has lived in downtown for 15 years I have found many housing options available. Rent starting at $400 and going up to $3000 a month and everything in between. Homes selling from $30k all the way up to $5 million. I don’t think housing is the problem. There seems to be more homes available now then I have ever seen before. I feel like the majority of people who move to Phoenix want to get away from the big city life. Most people choose to live in the suburbs. The main reason is that they are more comfortable being outside of town in a clean quiet neighborhood. There is nothing wrong with that. I could not deal with it, but I see the trend and understand it. Phoenix is just not meant to have a thriving downtown in comparison to other cities. I’m very happy with the lifestyle here just the way it is. If a large amount of people made the choice to live and play downtown it would loose it’s small town in a big city charm that many of us enjoy. The fight to make it more popular will only lead to it becoming more commercial and corporate to appeal to the masses. That seems to be the trend.
Life lesson #1: there’s no such thing as a steady job, especially in this economy. Its unfourtunate that people were laid off, but the fact is that’s the nature of the business. A company can’t afford to pay it’s employees money they don’t have.
For years, there has been so much talk about how people want downtown to grow and thrive but there hasn’t been much action to back it up. Urban Outfitters taking the risk to go in downtown is a giant step in the right direction because it attracts other resturants and retailers to follow suit. I think it’s important to remember Rome wasn’t built in a day, and downtown isn’t going to booming with business right away, it’s a process.
J File, find me a home for sale in Downtown for $30k.
Or a $400/mo rent that isn’t over in the sketch Aves by Van Buren.
I talked to a girl in my class that works at Urban Outfitters and I asked her if she had been laid-off. She told me no and that the lay offs had happened quite a while. This is old news. She claimed that the people that were let go never worked enough hours. We’re talking less than 10 hours a week. SO don’t feel too sorry for those laid off. Now you have the whole story.
I was one of the employees that was laid off. I was there when the merchandise came in. We had to carry and empty every single box, group everything together and tag the clothes with security tags. I only worked one day after that. I was an employee for about two months with no hours. I honestly think it’s the location.
@Sean Sweat, there are tons!! Have you even looked, or are you just giving your 2 cents for the hell of it? Try Embassy Condos. There are multiple condos flying off the market in the 30,000 range.
BTW, Hotel Palomar is opening in the beginning of June. They will have apartments on top.
Sorry to hear that people got laid off. That’s life though. It just means that you are meant to do bigger and better things than being a sales clerk.