Chico, California Gottschalks Tranformed Into Forever 21

[Alpha8472]

The former Gottschalks in Chico, California has been transformed into a Forever 21. The store opened on August 15.

This was an amazingly fast transformation. Many of the former Gottschalks employees were hired by Forever 21.

[ieguy441]

Our Gottschalks in Hemet, ca reopened last Tuesday as F21. They were gutting the store out the day after it closed.

[storewanderer]

Looks like a real first class operation. http://chicoer.mycapture.com/mycapture/ ... tegoryID=0

I smell a lot of lawsuits from tenants that expect a department store in this space. What a pathetic joke.

[Alpha8472]

As much as I dislike the demographic, the teenage/college girls will love this place. I predict business at this store in this college town to be quite good. Gottschalks was a stuffy and outdated department store. It desperately tried to be like Macy's but could not compete with Macy's image. Sears and JCPenney already sold the same sort of stuff, but Forever 21 really appeals to young people looking for something trendy.

[storewanderer]

That store doesn't look trendy. It looks trashy. It doesn't look like they spent much of anything modifying Gottschalks interior beyond some really awful looking paint on the walls. This store looks nothing like their store in Sacramento that I saw in the Downtown Plaza.

[Alpha8472]

I was talking about the fashion. The clothing at Forever 21 is really quite appealing to young people.

The decor of the store is really disappointing of course. They didn't change much. I would say that they did a cheap repaint just to get the store open. Over time I believe they will eventually do a more extensive remodel.

However, the Chico store has a really nice glass skylight type thing in the ceiling. I am glad that they didn't get rid of that.