Growing Income and Population Bring More Shopping Choices to Central San Joaquin Valley

Shopping and Dining in the Central San Joaquin Valley or Greater Fresno-Clovis Area Becomes Easier

The saying goes like this. If you build it, they will come. But we will say that if you give residents of the Fresno-Clovis areas enough reasons to shop, they will come. In fact, shoppers from the Valley have been going to places such as Santa Barbara and San Francisco or the Bay Area to shop. The taste for high-end stores has been growing for a long time. The internal migration and relocation of shoppers and loyal consumers from Orange County, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area who are used to shopping at these upscale stores also helped a great deal the frenzy building seen everywhere around here. Of course, this is not new to the number crunchers, financial managers of all the stores visited by residents of Central California. They have known for a long time that shoppers from specific zip codes come to their stores. But the volume starts going up, it was time to pay attention to the Greater Fresno-Clovis Area shopping bloc.

Right now, for these retailers that have set up shop around here first, there is lots of benefit to reap. We decided to go shopping to see for ourselves. What is new always attracts more people. Who was not there at the opening of the first Cheesecake Factory in Fresno? My best friend and I decided to hop from new shops to new restaurants in one week-end. We soon found out that the list was too long to cover in one week-end. Since that time, we have been able to divide our time between shopping at new stores and eating at new dining establishments.

To get started, we decided to go from the Fig Garden Village, Fashion Fair Mall, the Shops at River Park, Villagio Shopping Center and the spreading shopping centers on Herndon near Clovis and Champlain and Perrin by the Woodward Park areas. The Fig Garden Village which Donahue Schriber bought from LandValue Management has always had a lot of high-end retail shops frequented by most socialites of Fresno, Clovis and surrounding communities. Among many others, it will soon have Banana Republic which sells upscale clothes, accessories and shoes. J. Jill is scheduled to be there. J. Jill is known for its catalog business. It carries women's clothing that is typically aimed at affluent women between age 35 and older. Coach will open in June. It is known mostly for its high-end purses, luggage, wallets and accessories. One thing that became clear is that location is what sells real estate. The Fig Garden Village has a large group of various banking institutions, retail businesses, restaurants such as La Boulangerie, stores such as Whole Foods and the Fig Garden Village bookstore. No matter how appealing the atmosphere was there, we had to keep up with our plans. So we got into our cars and headed out on Shaw towards Fashion Fair Mall, owned by the Macerich Co. which also owns more than 100 shopping centers from Carmel Plaza in Carmel and all the way to Arden Fair Mall in Sacramento. Then, you have other high-end stores such as Chico's Talbots and Patrick James which have been doing good business here.