Three more for The SoNo Collection

NORWALK, Conn. – You’ll be able to shop for a good night’s sleep in The SoNo Collection, the mall expected to open in October.

Casper Mattress is among three retailers to have applied to the Norwalk Planning and Zoning Department for a tenant fit-up in the mall since the last time NancyOnNorwalk checked in on this process. Also on file Tuesday were iFix Station and Pretzelmaker.

Casper Mattress in March scored $100 million in funding to “fuel its international expansion and the growth of its physical retail stores,” Bloomberg reports. “Founded five years ago, the company started by selling mattresses directly to consumers online. It has since expanded into pillows, bedding and sleep accessories, with the goal of becoming the world’s first ‘end-to-end sleep company.’”

Casper will rent 2,365 square feet on The SoNo Collection’s second floor, according to the application. There’s a Casper Mattress in The Westchester, in White Plains.

Pretzelmaker plans 800 square feet and iFix Station, which says it specializes in repairing iPhone, iPad, iPod & Samsung Galaxy series Phones,  plans 613 square feet.

The applications on file with P&Z on Tuesday add up to 184,619 square feet. Adding that to the 302,000 square feet assigned to anchor stores Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s, then 67.8% of the total 717,000 square feet is accounted for as retail. If you subtract 180,000 square feet as concourse/public realm space from the total 717,000 square feet, then 90.6% of the mall is rented out, as represented in applications to P&Z.

Adding the new store applications to the old, you get this list of expected mall occupants:

• Abercrombie & Fitch
• Abercrombie Kids
• Altar’d State
• Apple
• Bath & Body Works
• Barry’s Bootcamp
• Bloomingdale’s
• CAMP
• Casper Mattress
• Chico’s
• EQ3
• H&M
• Hollister
• iFix
• J. Jill
• Journeys
• Kay Jeweler’s
• Lush
• L’Occitane
• Made in China
• Nordstrom
• Pandora
• Pinstripes
• Pretzelmaker
• Sephora
• Soma
• Talbots
• Tutti Nails
• Victoria’s Secret
• White House Black Market
• Yong Kang Street
• Yard House
• ZARA USA Inc

Meanwhile, Nordstrom has announced its Oct. 11 opening and is advertising a “Norwalk Night Out,” a pre-opening night party on Thursday, Oct. 10; tickets are $100 and proceeds will go to the Fairfield County Community Foundation and the Domestic Violence Crisis Center.

Mayor Harry Rilling on July 26 said he had just been on a mall tour.

“You wouldn’t believe the inside of that place,” he said, commenting that many of the stores were already fitted out, Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s “are just about complete,” and are “massive,” occupying three floors each.

While some call The SoNo Collection “the last mall being built in America,” it won’t be the last mall to open. The American Dream mega-mall is expected to open Oct. 25 off the New Jersey Turnpike in East Rutherford – 17 years after construction began.

It was born as “Xanadu” in 2005 and expected to open in 2007. New owner Triple Five, the project’s third developer, said the opening of its mega-mall would be phased with some elements opening in the fall and others near the holidays and into 2020, according to nj.com.