Target is looking to change the face of urban retail by 2012. The discount retailer’s new initiative includes new stores in eleven of the United States’ biggest cities over the next two years. The first will open in Seattle, with others to follow in San Francisco and Baltimore. Unlike recent Target stores in Chicago and Manhattan’s East Harlem Mall, the new urban shopping centers will only take up around 80,000 square feet of real estate, approximately half the size of typical Target stores. This past summer, the company also announced its new Target Mobile program, adding mobile phone activation centers to their stores, as well as the new Target Trade-In program, allowing customers to trade in old iPods and other electronics toward new purchases. Provided its new urban stores are completed on schedule, Target may soon have a whole new consumer base to help build on a profitable 2010.
