A modest upswing in domestic expansion

An announcement last week that Target plans to open 21 stores in the coming fiscal year was interesting on a number of levels.

For starters, the disclosure was rather uncharacteristic for a company that in years past would publicly release its stores openings a week or two in advance of the actual openings. In this case, the company shared its full list of openings for the entire year two weeks before its new fiscal year even begins.

That’s nice because it allows for a bit of analysis. It is interesting that five of the 21 new stores will be located in California, a state in a horrible financial mess with one of the worst housing market in the nation after Nevada and Florida. Hawaii gets its fourth store, and this time it’s on the slow side of the big island in the town of Hilo. Talk about a replenishment challenge.

One of the most interesting openings promises to be a 174,000-sq.-ft. SuperTarget in Woodbury, Minn., a suburb on the eastern edge of St. Paul. Given the proximity to Target’s home office in Minneapolis is conceivable the Woodbury store will house some merchandising experiments.

Other Target stores will open in the following communities in 2011:

March 6

• Oakland-Emeryville, Calif.

• Lakewood, Colo.

• Woodbury, Minn.

• Madison, Wis.

• Newport, Ky.

• Marlborough, Mass.

July 24

• Hilo, Hawaii

• San Luis Obispo, Calif.

• Oxnard, Calif.

• Chandler, Ariz.

• Moore, Okla.

• Kenner, La.

• Swansea, Mass.

• Hanover, Pa.

• Pittsburgh, Pa.

October 9

• San Clemente, Calif.

• Dublin, Calif.

• Blue Ash, Ohio

• Gastonia, N.C.

• Morrisville, N.C.

• Warwick Township, Pa.