Target to open in downtown Los Angeles

New York City Target Corp. will open a store in downtown Los Angeles, at the 7+Fig shopping center, which has been without an anchor tenant since Macy's left early last year, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Expected to open in 2012, the store will be located in a combined space on one floor formerly occupied by Macy's and Bullock's department stores. It will carry a different merchandise mix, with a heavy emphasis on food and household basics, according to the newspaper.

"It's really about trying to magnify the relationship that we have had with those urban central core guests," said John Griffith, executive VP property development at Target, in the report. "We believe that as we offer them an alternative that is immediately adjacent to where they work, where they live, that we can increase the depth of that relationship."

Target's agreement to rent more than 100,000 square feet at the corner of 7th and Figueroa streets is one of the largest retail leases in decades downtown, the newspaper reported.