The 2nd Street shopping district is likely to get a jolt from patrons still paying off college loans with a new Urban Outfitters clothing store.
As evident by the colorful graffiti, the faux-thrift store (call it ironic?) retailer has plans to move into the ground floor of The W Austin Hotel, which opened in December 2010.
I shop exclusively at Kohl’s, but allegedly Urban Outfitters’ new spot is a big deal because their only other Austin location is not so far away on Guadalupe Street, up near the University of Texas main campus. Perhaps they are targeting the PBS Austin City Limits crowd from shows taped there?
Jokes aside, this is a vindication that downtown Austin is becoming a destination and not in the way of “urban pioneers” loading up on Gatorade and PB&J to venture out of suburbia, like they do in Ohio.
For a number of reasons, Urban Outfitters joins the ranks of business interests investing in downtown Austin.
Cole Broadhead, a principal at Retail Solutions, said the folks at Urban Outfitters “do their homework.”
“Those deals take a long time,” he said. “They do a ton of research.”