BUSINESS
Shoppers Bolster
Israeli Mall
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THIS SPACE CONTRIBUTED BY THE PUBLISHER
Jerusalem (JTA) — There is
a boutique near the central
bus station here, the Jeans
Club, that is doing a
flourishing business these
days after floundering for
the past couple of years.
But anyone searching for a
pair of jeans had better look
elsewhere because for the
past year the Jeans Club has
not sold a single pair of
pants.
In fact, there is not a pair
of jeans for sale in the entire
shopping center where the
store is located.
Long-sleeved blouses have
replaced tank tops. Long,
modest skirts have displaced
minis.
Since last January, the en-
tire Center 1 Mall, a hub of
40 shops, has devoted itself
solely to a fervently re-
ligious clientele. And busi-
ness has never been better.
"The vast majority of wo-
men who shop here now are
religious, so we cater to
them," said store manager
Irit Harnoy matter-of-factly.
"We no longer sell pants or
bodysuits, but that's O.K.
The religious people are very
nice and I'm happy to stock
what they want to buy," she
said.
Built by the Yona hotel
chain in 1987, Center 1 was
originally designed to at-
tract a wide range of
customers, religious and
secular, Jewish and Arab, in
this busy section of the city,
said Avi Ben-Arush, the
shopping mall's manager.
"It did for a while," said
Mr. Ben-Arush. "But then
business slowed down."
"Part of the problem was
the intifada," said the mall's
sole Arab storekeeper, who
runs a large souvenir shop.
"The center has always
relied heavily on tourists,
and the intifada has hurt the
tourist industry.
"We also used to have a lot
of wealthy Arabs from, say,
Bethlehem, who would come
to the mall and spend a lot of
money," he said.
"Those days have been
over for a long time," the
shopowner said.
In 1992, with most shopp-
ing center hurting for busi-
ness and heightened con-
cerns that a new man across
town, then nearing comple-
tion, would lure away
customers, management
decided to take a gamble.
Once the decision to
change was made, manage-
ment had to figure out exact-
ly how to go about it, he said.