Denver’s upscale Cherry Creek neighborhood has seen in the past couple of years, but steel-toed work boots are being replaced with high heels as the wraps come off of one major project this week.
RH Denver will open Friday morning, filling nearly 70,000 square feet over four floors with high-end furnishings — a Cherry Creek Shopping Center concept store that some already are calling a retail game-changer.
Online shopping and browsing has led many retailers to beef up their Internet presence and scale back on square footage. But — the re-branded Restoration Hardware — is going the opposite direction, opening spacious stores stocked with luxury products and the kind of aspirational merchandise that appeals to millennials feathering their first nests and affluent baby boomers downsizing into comfortable retirement.
Denver shoppers — who should plan on spending some time exploring the vast space — will find a wide assortment, including modular leather sofas with components that start at $4,995; baby cribs at about $1,000 and up and a glittering assortment of chandeliers and mirrors.
To keep it from being overwhelming, the store features design ateliers where shoppers can pore over fabric swatches, faucets and finishes with on-staff interior designers — or bring their own.
As he toured the store this week, RH chairman and CEO , debunked the notion that people want to shop for home furnishings online.
“The Internet represents only 10 percent of all retail sales,” Friedman said while sitting on an angular gray sofa in the fourth floor “Rooftop Park & Conservatory.”
The space, with views of the mountains, features decomposed granite pathways, potted evergreens, shade canopies and crystal chandeliers hung over wooden tables.
It’s a cool place to hang out — just the type of environment RH has been creating in new stores around the country.
After opening a smaller Houston store — about 25,000 square feet — several years ago, Friedman said he would walk around and eavesdrop on people while they shopped. “I’d hear them say, ‘I just want to live here.’ In 35 years in retail, I never heard anybody say that.”
Friedman, who joined Restoration Hardware in 2001 after 13 years at William-Sonoma, is a rule breaker who says typical shopping malls are “windowless boxes that lack humanity.”
There are more than 100 sets of French doors in the RH Denver store, “so you can breathe fresh air,” he says.
The design — with arched doorways, Juliet balconies, and a Tuscan-inspired stone colonnade on the main floor — borrows from the classical. But with concrete floors and a muted gray palette, it is true to the contemporary RH ethos.
Friedman says the company thinks more about creating aspirational vignettes than moving merchandise. “It’s not how to sell more rugs but how to create beautiful spaces that will inspire people to want to live in them.”
Corte Madera, Calif.-based RH currently has 69 stores in the U.S. and Canada. The company logged from the year before, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Friedman said he expects sales to reach $4-5 billion over the next two years as the company breaks the mold of the “6,000-square-foot store that is virtually the same in every place you go.”
That’s why RH has picked historic buildings, like a in Greenwich, Conn., for some of its smaller concept stores.
Denver is the company’s third large-scale gallery store. A 70,000-square-foot store opened late last year in Atlanta, one opened last week in Chicago , and others are planned for Tampa, Fla., and Austin, Texas.
“Wherever they go, they find the most incredible piece of real estate and create the ultimate shopping experience,” Mary Beth Jenkins, president of The Laramie Company, a commercial real estate brokerage, said of RH.
Consumers might browse for furniture online, “but this is a space you actually walk through and experience. How much better it is to see it and feel it than try to duplicate what you see on a computer screen,” Jenkins said. “They create vignettes for rooms and outdoor spaces that you can literally replicate in your home, and teach customers about interior design as they walk through the store.”
Two other new divisions for the company that are reflected in the Denver store are RH Modern and RH Teen. The Modern concept officially launched Monday with its own 540-page catalog selling products created in collaboration with an international roster of furniture and lighting designers.
The Denver site expands the footprint of the former Saks Fifth Avenue store, which closed in 2011. Friedman began working with , which owns Cherry Creek Shopping Center, as soon as Saks left.
“Any tenant or merchant who comes in is a retail partner with us, with both making an investment,” mall general manager Nick LeMasters said. “The size and scale of (this) investment is significant and shows that they think it has real staying power.”
RH’s decision to build in Denver demonstrates “the resiliency of the center and the demand for luxury goods in this market,” LeMasters said. “RH is the type of game-changer that people will drive to from a six-state area.”
He said he also expects to see more foot traffic to the mall. are expected to place an additional 3,000 people within walking distance in the next few years.
Suzanne S. Brown: 303-954-1697, sbrown@denverpost.com or @suzannebro
Rh denver, the gallery at cherry creek
RH chairman and CEO Gary Friedman cuts the ribbon at 11 a.m. Friday and doors open officially at 11:30 a.m.
Regular hours are Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Sunday , 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Valet parking available at 2900 E. First Ave.
Info: 303-331-1938 or
