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No slowdown in sight for Steve & Barry's University Sportswear It didn’t take long for two young entrepreneurs to go from having the most crowded booth at the flea market to being one of the hottest retailers in the nation.
In 1979, Steve Shore and Barry Prevor successfully sold T-shirts for $1 apiece at Long Island flea markets. Fast forward to 2006, and Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear is making a major move forward in the retail real estate industry.
Last year, the company received the 2005 International Council of Shopping Centers Hot Retailer of the Year award; was tagged by CNN as an IPO buzz-worthy company; and opened 62 stores throughout the country. This year, Steve & Barry’s hasn’t lost a step in its bid to move into the cleanup spot in the retail lineup. And there’s no slowdown in sight.
“The sky really is the limit,” said Doug Calvin, director of real estate for Steve & Barry’s. “It’s a success that is very much expected because every time we open up a new store, people in the community are saying ‘where have you been all of our life’.”
Perhaps the biggest accomplishment for the company was winning the Hot Retailer of the Year award over retailers like Coach, Williams-Sonoma, White House/Black Market and Apple Computer store.
To determine which company received the honor, the ICSC asked all the mall developers what retailer they most wanted to tenant their mall
“And they said us,” said Andy Todd, president of Steve & Barry’s. “But this award wasn’t saying that ‘hey, you’re really hot, you’re really pretty,’ it was saying that the customers like us a lot and we bring the most excitement, the biggest buzz to the mall. And that’s just a phenomenal honor.”
Steve & Barry’s currently operates approximately 130 stores throughout 33 states. The stores offer mainly athletic apparel from over 350 universities and colleges, but also sell items such as jeans, genuine down jackets, wool and heavyweight jackets, athletic pants, hooded sweatshirts and cargo shorts. While there’s plenty of quality items to choose from, the major attraction to the store is the price tag, which typically reads $9.98 or less.
“Overall, we feel like we have a fantastic concept,” said Calvin. “And we’re constantly trying to make the merchandise mix better.”
The stores range in size from 25,000 sq.ft., such as the store at the Manhattan Mall in New York City, all the way up to 150,000 sq.ft. sites. For this year, Steve & Barry’s is securing well over half a million sq.ft. for new store locations within the first quarter alone. There’s a reason for that type of growth: the company is low maintenance, offering a quick turn-around time from deal to lease, from drawings to construction, from fixturing to inventory, right down to the store opening. A broker’s dream.
The company’s most recent opening was a 124,000 sq.ft. location at Franklin Mills Mall outside of Philadelphia, PA. That location is just a hop and a skip away from the site where Steve and Barry opened their first store on the University of Pennsylvania campus. That’s where the young businessmen sold athletic T-shirts and sweatshirts, donning university logos, at prices far below the market rate. The two friends have said they envisioned success before they even opened their first store.
At 15 years old, the boys went to screen printers and bought up boxes of T-shirts for cheap prices and carted them to flea markets across Long Island. That’s where the budding industry giants began to have dreams of things bigger and better when the customers lined up to snatch the $1 shirts. A few years later, and with a little more business knowledge and college know-how, they graduated into their first store. Then, in 1998, they moved off campus and opened a mall store in Auburn Hills, MI. What followed was a high-speed expansion.
“I think they saw a vision that one day they would be like a Target or a Kohl’s,” said Calvin.
Well, the company is more than on its way to joining the big boys. Steve & Barry’s recently opened a new, 1.3 million sq.ft., fully-automated distribution center in Columbus, OH to support its current stores, as well as its future growth.
The company also is expanding its corporate office, recruiting talent from the top of the industry and young ambitious talent from the nation’s top schools.
In its history, the company has grown by 50 to 100 percent every year. This year, it’s planning to open between 70 and 80 stores and is eyeing sites north of the border into Canada. In the distant future, Steve & Barry’s envisions operating as many as 5,000 stores.
“We have so many opportunities that we could open 500 stores a year,” said Calvin. “But we’re not going to expand beyond our means.”
And no area is out of reach for Steve & Barry’s.
“We’re opened up to the whole U.S.,” added Calvin. “There’s no state that we would not open up a new store. There’s no specific states that we’re focused on for growth, but because we are a hot retailer we get flooded with 20 to 30 opportunities per day.”
While Steve & Barry’s typically operates locations in enclosed malls and power and strip centers, the company has been experimenting with open-air centers and there is talk of future stores operating in freestanding sites and downtown and urban developments.
With such success, you’d think there would be some jealous retailers saying that Steve & Barry’s just got lucky.
“I guess you really make your own luck,” said Calvin. “We think very positively around here. Our success isn’t surprising, because we do work incredibly hard on every facet of the company. Every area of the company is growing, from senior management to junior management and up-and-coming management. We work hard on a day-to-day basis and it really shows. We’re constantly trying to make the stores look better and find better real estate. Now, we’re making sure that there’s no slowdown in sight.”
Todd points out that the success of Steve & Barry’s comes from good communication throughout the company.
“We fight between senior executives, and I don’t mean physically fight, and disagree all the time to come to the best decision we can,” said Todd. “We discuss everything.”
That hard work and communication has meant tremendous success for the company, but it also means that Todd doesn’t exactly have a lot of free time. He can remember going to his first Las Vegas ICSC convention and begging and clawing for attention. Now, it’s the developers and brokers that are trying to get his ear.
“Oh, we love the attention,” he said. “Back a few years ago nobody knew about us and would say ‘get the heck out of here.’ People wouldn’t take meetings with us. Now it’s at the point where everybody wants to meet with us. But that’s the way we like it. And I think if you talk to people, they’ll say that we are good guys to deal with. We’re fair and we do what we say we’re going to do. And we still try to be down and dirty.”
For more information, contact Doug Calvin, Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear, 12 Harbor Park Drive, Port Washington, NY 11050; 516-267-7359, Fax 516-487-4361 Email: dcalvin@ny.steveandbarrys.com; Web site: www.steveandbarrys.com. |