Target opens second Santa Rosa store

[caption id="attachment_100928" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Team leaders for the Coddingtown Target store (from left) Adrian Senestraro, logistics; Breanna Weaver, grocery; Angel Green-Beasley, salesfloor; Megan Louie, store; and Jose Franco pose with a statue of the corporate mascot "Spot." (credit: Jeff Quackenbush)[/caption]

SANTA ROSA -- Several years and a couple of location possibilities later, Target Corporation opened a north Santa Rosa department store on Oct. 8.

The store, located in 135,000 square feet along much of the south side of Coddingtown regional mall, the store is set to employ about 250 and offer vision checks and optical department, pharmacy with health screenings and grocery department.

"It took 30 general-merchandise trucks to fill the building in 25 days," said Megan Louie, store manager.

[caption id="attachment_100927" align="alignleft" width="300"] Jackie Giron (left) and Carissa Terry, team leader, staff the Coddingtown Target store's optical department. (credit: Jeff Quackenbush)[/caption]

The store opened with $7 million in inventory such as electronics, produce, packaged foods, clothing and home accessories. The grocery offers gluten-free foods, as the south Santa Rosa store has started carrying.

The new store is the second in the Bay Area, after the Colma store, to have an optical department. Albert Lee, O.D., is the optometrist.

[caption id="attachment_100926" align="alignright" width="300"] Jody Okafor, Pharm.D., at the entrance to the new store's health services room (credit: Jeff Quackenbush)[/caption]

Overseeing the pharmacy is Jody Okafor, Pharm.D. Thanks to a relatively new role for California pharmacists as first-line health care providers under SB 493, conducting screenings for blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes and providing immunizations, Dr. Okafor will be working with customers in the health services room at the end of a hall next to the pharmacy.

The room in the future likely will be staffed on the weekends with contract nurses who will also provide dietary counseling, she said.

"It's the next step of pharmacy," Dr. Okafor said.

Target has a supervising physician for its California pharmacists.

The store incorporates a now-common feature of Target's 1,900-plus stores, pay online and pick up in the store, a feature that a number of retailers have implemented. The Novato Target store is a regional pilot for a new service that would allow customers to order items that the store would ship to their homes, and a store in the retailer's home base of Minneapolis is trying out same-day delivery.

These technologies are transforming how the chain approaches in-store inventory, Ms. Louie said. The trend from large store inventory had swung to smaller, just-in-time stocking that relied on regional warehouses and now is moving back toward a greater number of products on hand to fulfill orders, she said.

The new store was built at the site of a Gottschalks store that was vacant since the chain's assets were liquidated in early 2009. Because of the larger footprint of the single-story Target store than the two-story previous store, several small tenants were relocated in the mall to accommodate the larger retailer.

Target has a direct entrance to the mall interior via a rolling metal door that can be shut when the mall is closed Store hours are Sundays, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Mondays through Fridays, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Target had planned to put a store in a proposed shopping center in southwest Windsor, but that development fizzled because of environmental-mitigation issues.

In conjunction with the store opening, Target presented a grant of $2,500 to nearby Steele Lane Elementary school to purchase supplies for the new year.

[caption id="attachment_100931" align="aligncenter" width="500"] The new Target store occupies much of the south side of Coddingtown Mall. (credit: Jeff Quackenbush)[/caption]

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