One Neiman Marcus complaint: It’s a chain store! But wait, Broadway Plaza has always had chain stores…

A common refrain I read in some of the complaints about Neiman Marcus: It is not “local.”

Since Neiman Marcus is part of a chain with headquarters based far away (Dallas, Texas), readers ask why the city is working so hard to bring this high-end, chain department store to Walnut Creek—when it could be doing more to support local businesses?

Yes, a reasonable question: Certainly, it would be nice to know that the city is supporting the business needs of local, home-grown merchants. Perhaps city and business leaders could fill us in on what they are doing to support “local.”

As I said, one strong objection to Neiman Marcus is that it is not local. This objection suggests that the more than half-century of retail success in Walnut Creek’s downtown is due to local businesses.

Is that really true? The above photo of Broadway Plaza in the 1950s, with national chain JC Penney's serving as the shopping mall's anchor suggests that things have been rather complicated, even from the beginning.

I’m sure that Walnut Creek’s downtown thrived on a mix of “chain” retailers, like JC Penney's, and local merchants—with those local merchants selling unique and targeted products to their hometown Walnut Creek consumers.

Still, I have to confess, as a native of Walnut Creek, I mostly remember shopping at the downtown chain stores, and depending on those retailers for basic needs: clothing, housewares, toiletries, groceries.

Speaking of clothing, there was always Capwells, an Oakland-based department store that operated in the space now occupied by Macy’s.

Capwell’s later became the Emporium, based in San Francisco. There was also the above-mentioned JC Penney (in the former David M. Brian location), again for basic clothing needs. For everything else—pet supplies, sewing supplies, little gifts—there was Woolworth’s, the original five-and-dime. I also recall shopping at our local Gemco on North Main Street. This discount department store, owned by San Leandro-based Luckys, was later sold and taken over by Target.

Speaking of JC Penney’s, its desire to have a store in Walnut Creek was the genesis of Broadway shopping center in 1949. This information about Penney’s wanting to establish an “outpost” in the post-World War II East Bay suburban frontier comes from Brad Rovanpera, who, up until Thursday, was the public information officer for the City of Walnut Creek. He’s retiring from the city after 24 years.

He has also served as Walnut Creek’s official historian. As Rovanpera tells me, JC Penney’s desire to push into the fertile but still undeveloped lands east of the Oakland Hills “prompted a search for a suitable site, and [Broadway Plaza] was born.”

He notes that other chains also made their way into Walnut Creek: Sear’s, Smith’s, and I. Magnin.

I don’t remember Sear’s being in Walnut Creek, but I do remember shopping with my mother at I. Magnin, which was considered something of a special treat, as San Francisco-based I. Magnin was considered rather posh. I also have a vague memory of when another chain, Bullock’s, based in Los Angeles, arrived in town. This was around the time of the 1976 presidential race, when Gerald Ford was running against Jimmy Carter for president. I remember when Gerald Ford came to Walnut Creek to give a brief speech. The afternoon of Ford’s speech, we got out of school early to head down to the area in front of the new Bullock’s (now the site of Nordstrom) to hear Mr. Ford speak.

Flash forward from Walnut Creek's past and to our current growth and retail controversy:

So, the word “chain” has a negative connotation for some people. In the debate about Neiman Marcus, “chain” equates to “outside influences”—deep-pocketed outside influences that are trying to bend the will and needs of a local population to their self-interest and greed.

Of course, Neiman Marcus wants to promote its own self-interest. That’s capitalism, isn't it?

Probably everyone engaging in this Neiman Marcus debate has some kind of self-interest at stake, proponents and opponents alike, including rival mall developer, Taubman Centers.

(Oh, and don't get me started on my basically cynical view of human nature and self-interest.)

But just because Neiman Marcus is an “outside” chain, and Macerich is an “outside” Southern California-based owner of Broadway Plaza, and they want to promote their financial self-interest by opening a Neiman Marcus in Walnut Creek--is that bad for Walnut Creek?

Isn’t that, more or less, how things have always been done in Broadway Plaza’s 60-year history? The outside chain coming in to provide that retail anchor?

Anyway, thanks Brad Rovanpera, for this fun photo of Broadway Plaza in the 1950s. And good luck in your future post retirement.