H&M and Forever 21 openings at St. Clair Square mall will expand clothing options
Forever 21 opened its new, larger clothing store at St. Clair Square in Fairview Heights on Friday, and H&M has announced that its new location at the mall will open Thursday.
“We’re very excited,” said Christine Poehling, marketing manager for St. Clair Square and South County Center in St. Louis. “We’re thrilled to have both of these stores.”
Forever 21 moved within the mall and nearly doubled its size, going up to about 8,000 square feet. The new store is on the lower level, directly across from the J.C. Penney entrance, down the corridor from Macy’s.
“We still have the same type of merchandise,” said store manager Julie Manis on Friday. “It’s just that everything is brand new. ... It looks really good. Everybody seems happy with it.”
The store will host grand-opening celebrations on Saturday and Sunday with prizes, starting at 10 a.m. Saturday.
“We have 100 gift cards that we are going to give away to our customers who are waiting in line,” Manis said. “They’re valued at anywhere from $10 to $250.”
On Sunday, shoppers who find 11 gold hangars hidden on racks in the store also will receive gift certificates.
H&M, formally Hennes and Mauritz, announced in June of 2018 that it would open a location at St. Clair Square, its first in the metro-east.
“This is a very good retailer,” Fairview Heights Economic Development Director Paul Ellis said at the time. “They’re a Swedish company, and they’ve been very successful in the U.S. They’re in many of the major malls across the country.”
The nearly 20,000-square-foot store at St. Clair Square will be next to Forever 21 on the lower level. It will offer clothing for women, men, teens and children, as well as accessories.
“Not all of the H&Ms have all those departments,” Poehling said. “This is a full-size store.”
H&M representatives didn’t return calls for comment on Friday. The new location will offer a “one-stop shopping destination for quality clothing,” according to a news release from a public-relations firm.
H&M has stores in St. Louis Galleria and West County Center in Des Peres, Missouri. In January, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the company was expanding with a new 21,000-square-foot store at Mid Rivers Mall in St. Peter’s, Missouri, and a larger store at West County.
The Fairview Heights location will be the company’s 23rd in Illinois.
“With the opening of the St. Clair Square location, H&M is proud to add approximately 20 employees for this store,” the news release stated.
The company carries the brands H&M and H&M Home, COS, & Other Stories, Monki, Weekday Cheap Monday and ARKET, according to its website.
The Fairview Heights store is set to open at noon Thursday. The first 100 shoppers in line will receive gift certificates valued between $10 and $500, the news release stated.
This story was originally published August 31, 2019 at 5:00 AM.
