Macerich And WithMe™ Bring Transformative Smart Retail Concept To The Mall With New Flagship Store At Santa Monica Place, Launching With 6-Week, West Coast Debut Of Century 21 Department Store

Century 21, the iconic New York-based retailer known for delivering designer brands at amazing prices, will offer a well-edited, extensive collection of designer merchandise that includes men's and women's apparel, accessories, swimwear and fragrance. The retailer curated its exclusive, WithMe Santa Monica Place merchandise mix for the contemporary, relaxed Southern California lifestyle, and for the brand's limited, summer season run.

With Century 21 as its first retail activation, WithMe at Santa Monica Place launches in a nearly 8,000 square-foot, two-level flagship location facing Third Street Promenade.

Once in store, shoppers will experience WithMe's innovative retail technology, including an immersive, floor-to-ceiling smart display called the Pixel Wall, crafted from 900 individual screens that move independently to form shelves and hanging racks. As well, glass-top digital displays and interactive fixtures offer product highlights and video content about brands. WithMe's "Easter egg" experiences, such as a virtual reality showcase and a large social media wall, keeps shoppers surprised and engaged. Guests can shop an "endless aisle" because they can scan items to find more options, request items to try on, build a cart and check out. Even the fitting rooms are cutting edge: interactive mirror displays allow customers to make purchases or request alternate products without leaving their rooms. RFID tags on all products give shoppers ready information at their fingertips.  

The goal of WithMe's technology is to make shopping fun and easy for consumers and simple for retailers to set up shop – a goal that Macerich shares. "Macerich is the ideal partner for WithMe," said Jonathan Jenkins, Founder and CEO of WithMe. "We were looking to expand into premier shopping centers that consumers know and love, and where traditional and pure-play brands want to be, in the country's best markets. All of this defines Macerich and its properties. We're also tremendously excited to be working with a retail icon like Century 21 for our launch at Santa Monica Place. Our technology provides the perfect platform for this legendary brand to expand into new markets and create experiences their customers will love," added Jenkins.

WithMe, which took top honors this spring as "Store of the Year" in Retail Design Institute's 45^th annual International Store Design Competition, earlier previewed its groundbreaking concept with pop-ups in Chicago and Las Vegas. Significant retail and consumer demand in these initial markets made the case for expanding WithMe's reach and impact.      

"Macerich is always focused on bringing the best new retail concepts to our portfolio of trophy properties in top U.S. gateway markets," said Eric Salo, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Macerich. "With its incredible technology that creates personalized, online and offline shopping experiences, plus an ever-changing array of brand activations, WithMe will be a signature draw for our mall shoppers."  

Macerich and WithMe already have plans to expand the concept, in both large and small common-area formats, to other top-performing Macerich properties in the near future. WithMe currently is building modular common-area designs that range in size from 100 -1,000 square feet to accommodate a wide range of retail activations at Macerich centers in markets including New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago.

WithMe at Santa Monica Place will offer customers several different modes of delivery: The opportunity to take their merchandise with them at the time of purchase; same-day delivery to their homes, offices or hotels powered by DELIV; and delivery to the location of their choice within two days. 

For Century 21, the renowned New York-based fashion retailer looks to use the WithMe experience to create a unique, experiential and highly personalized connection with a new market on the West Coast.

"The essence of our business is in delivering designer brands at amazing prices and the revolutionary WithMe retail concept will change the way our guests interact with our curated selection of designer merchandise," said Raymond Gindi, Co-CEO, Century 21 Department Store. "This venture to the West Coast is not only historic for our company from a location stand-point, but it's part of a macro retail strategy we're employing of creating more interactive retail experiences for our shoppers."

About WithMe

WithMe is blending digital and physical touchpoints to create a new type of flexible retail footprint for brands and retailers. WithMe's retail store is an entirely new experience for today's consumer, enabling shoppers to browse and touch physical goods in-store while easily ordering related products or out of stock items with convenient home delivery. The company has been featured in TechCrunch, Forbes, CNBC and Entrepreneur Magazine.  Learn more by visiting the WithMe website shopwithme.com.  WithMe is a new venture that has acquired certain assets of OrderWithMe related to the ShopWithMe solution.

About Century 21 Department Store: Delivering Value to Live Better

Century 21 Department Store, a NYC icon for more than 50 years, is legendary for its exceptional offering of designer brands at amazing prices. Century 21 remains a leader in high-end off-price fashion retail, offering men's, women's and children's apparel, footwear, outerwear, lingerie and accessories, along with beauty and home goods at select stores and online at C21Stores.com. The retailer is headquartered in Downtown Manhattan with 10 stores total. Locations in New York include Lincoln Square, Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. There are three stores in New Jersey: Paramus, Morristown and Elizabeth. Century 21 Department Store opened its first store outside of the New York Metro area in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and continues to expand in new markets. In 2016, two new stores will open; City Point Brooklyn followed by Sawgrass Mills in Florida. For more information, follow Century 21 Department Store on facebook.com/century21stores and @Century21stores on Twitter and Instagram.

About Macerich

Macerich, an S&P 500 company, is a fully integrated self-managed and self-administered real estate investment trust, which focuses on the acquisition, leasing, management, development and redevelopment of regional malls throughout the United States.

Macerich currently owns 55 million square feet of real estate consisting primarily of interests in 50 regional shopping centers. Macerich specializes in successful retail properties in many of the country's most attractive, densely populated markets with significant presence in the California, Arizona, Chicago and the Metro New York to Washington, D.C. corridor. Additional information about Macerich can be obtained from the Company's website: www.macerich.com

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SOURCE Macerich

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