Shopping

The Walnut Creek Neiman Marcus will finally be open to the public on Friday March 9, and I was fortunate to be able to get a sneak peak. As far as stores go, it’s pretty incredible, with plenty of attention to detail. There is artwork throughout the store displayed by local artists which I’ll cover in a future post. The photo above is on the first floor in the center of the store. Notice the Gucci shop in the back. There is also a Chanel shop, exclusively available in the East Bay.

As you enter the main entrance you will encounter the, “Fashion Runway“, as noted by the VP of store development Ignaz Gorischek, which changes every week or so with the latest fashion setup by the store’s fulltime stylist. It’s not on a raised platform so as to be accessible to people who can check out the merchandise up close.

Check out more photos after the jump

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The Little Tibet Gift Shop is located in the same passageway that the new drawing studio A Colorful Mind and Norf London is located, at 1341 N. Main St. in downtown Walnut Creek. As you’re walking down N. Main St. towards Neiman Marcus, turn right right before the Rochester Big & Tall clothing store in the covered passageway and it will be on your right, a few stores down.

They have been in this location for over 5 years, and also have a shop in Berkeley, one of the oldest Tibetan stores in the Bay Area. They offer handcrafted Tibetan-Himalayan goods including clothing jewelry, bags scarves, home decor and more. Check out the inside below.

When I was there I picked up a flier that mentioned 15% off everything in the store so keep that in mind if you decide to check it out.

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After finding out that the dog wash and grooming sign that was featured on BtCreek a few months ago was stolen recently, I now present to you the store behind the sign, Clean Dog Healthy Dog. Located at 1829 Mt Diablo Blvd in downtown Walnut Creek next to Alborz Persian Cuisine restaurant, they have been in business for about 7 months, and one of the  owners is originally from Wales, in the United Kingdom, where his sister owned a dog grooming salon. He met his American wife over there and they decided to settle in Walnut Creek to start their dog wash and grooming business.

Check out the cool portraits below. If I had a dog I would definitely try this place out as the owners are really friendly and knowledgeable and it looks well managed. If anyone has been please let us know how it was.

Finally, if anyone can make it happen, please return the dog head to them; I’m sure they would be thrilled getting it back, as well as the legions of drivers coming to town from Highway 24.

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Located at the former Fancy Pants location at 1509 Cypress Street in downtown Walnut Creek (the sign still says “Fancy Pants”), TRB Designer Outlet is a work in progress, but at 70% off, you just may be able to find a great deal on women’s fashion.

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In a previous post about the new Neiman Marcus building in downtown Walnut Creek there were some complaints about the (Mt. Diablo view blocking) height of the building, as well as the size of the letters of the sign itself which might encourage over commercialism, so with the help of the Walnut Creek planning department I was able to track down the exact building heights and sign sizes of all three departments stores in downtown Walnut Creek.

It turns out that as far as building heights are concerned, Neiman Marcus comes in at the lowest height of all, at 35 feet, and 47 feet high for the architectural element at the corner of Mt. DIablo Blvd. and N. Main St. Both Nordstrom and the Macy’s building height are 50 feet tall. The old David M. Brian building was 25 feet tall.

As far as sign size goes, the Walnut Creek planning department noted in an email that:

the wall mounted signs for Nordstrom vary in size from 19.5 square feet to 139 square feet. Each of the four wall mounted signs for Macy’s (women’s store) are 130.8 square feet, and the wall mounted signs for Neiman Marcus are 131.81, 172 and 268.9 square feet.

In this case the Neiman Marcus signs indeed are much larger than the other department store signs. Whether Macy’s and Nordstrom will petition to get larger signs installed remains to be seen.

Do these issues concern anyone? Are you happy with how Neiman Marcus turned out? Personally I think it looks cool from a design standpoint and am relieved it’s not a rectangular box like department stores tend to be.

See Nordstrom and Macy’s building photos after the jump

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Golfsmith, the golf and tennis store located at 1902 Mt. Diable Blvd in downtown Walnut Creek, is moving to Pleasant Hill and getting rid of their entire tennis section according to an employee I spoke with recently. There will be more tech gadgets featured and a large virtual putting green which sounds great for golfers out there. Now what do tennis players like yours truly do? This is a bit disappointing, anyone know of tennis stores that sells and strings racquets in Walnut Creek?

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I was able to snap a quick shot of a Neiman Marcus window display in downtown Walnut Creek being setup for the grand opening on March 9. Upon a closer look through the window, it appears there’s going to be a huge shoe section on the first floor near that area.

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