Co-Op looks downtown for life after Broadway

"Stop by sometime and hatch a plot to overthrow the bourgeois capitalist elite," reads the Co-op's first ad attempting to turn students away from the Yale Bookstore and into their new store "in a cool, downtown setting" at 924 Chapel St. As the Yale bookstore battle heats up, it appears that the Co-op has succeeded in luring one group of Yalies: freshmen.

In fact, according to Co-op owner Harry Berkowitz, around 70 percent of the freshman class has already purchased Co-op memberships. That means hundreds of frosh filling the new Chapel Square store--and business that has far exceeded Berkowitz's expectations. "We've found a very positive response," Berkowitz said. "I didn't know how much business we would lose. We will do more business that I originally expected."

The Co-op's early success is thanks in part to aggressive marketing tactics to bring frosh to the new store. A few days before Yale opened to the Class of 2001, freshman counselors were invited to a special reception at the Co-op to acquaint them with the Chapel St. site. The scores of counselors who attended toured the store, sampled free food and a jazz band, and were personally greeted by Berkowitz.

In addition, the entire freshman class was mailed Co-op membership applications over the summer so that they could immediately pick up their cards when the store opened its doors. The Co-op also purchased a trolley that not only advertises the new store, but on a more practical level, relieves students of the burden of carrying heavy purchases back to their dorms.

Surprisingly, location has been one of the keys to the establishment's successful start. "The Co-op is much more convenient because it's closer to Bingham--and also because I already had my Yale Co-op card. I ordered my Yale Bookstore card over the summer and it has not arrived," Anna Ziegler, BK '01, said. "I went [to the Co-op] and it was just fine," Resa Schlossberg, DC '01, added.

All of the Co-op's new initiatives aim to change Yalies' perception of the downtown area. Although students used to trek downtown, the departure of stores like Macy's and Conran's in 1993 and 1994 left the area without attractive places to shop. "One of our greatest goals is to retrain people to walk in a different direction," Berkowitz said.

However, as students begin to buy textbooks for their courses, the Co-op will face its first real challenge. Yale's administration has encouraged professors to place their orders at the Yale Bookstore, taking away a large portion of the Co-op's textbook business. Although the Co-op has independently stocked up on many titles which professors have ordered in the past, without most of this year's specific course orders, students won't be able to rely on the Co-op for all the books they need.

"The University decided that the space we had should change tenants. We are no longer the store of choice to the offices of the University," Berkowitz said.

With ties to Yale's administration severed, the Co-op will look to other relationships with Yale for support. Psychology professor Peter Salovey sits on the store's board of directors--in fact, all 15 members of the Co-op's board have ties to Yale. These connections have helped the Co-op get textbook orders for over 100 courses, including large lecture classes like Salovey's Psychology 110a.

The Co-op will also rely heavily on its personalized service in an age of corporations and mega-chains. "When you run 500 stores, you don't run them as you would a single operation. Our job is to service one particular area. [The Co-op and the Bookstore] are two different organizations," Berkowitz said.

However, Berkowitz knows that the key to long-term success for new Co-op will be a diverse clientele. "Instead of marketing fully to the Yale campus, we're going to have to find different avenues of attracting two different audiences," Berkowitz said.

Macy's and Conran's alone brought an estimated $70-80 million of business to downtown annually. Now, the Co-op hopes to tap into the old department stores' consumer base and to anchor a revamped Chapel Square Mall. "We hope to get a very significant slice of the New Haven pie," Berkowitz said.

Specifically, the Co-op hopes to attract the 7,000-10,000 citizens who work in the downtown area and those who will soon move into Liberty Building near the new Omni Hotel. Accordingly, the relocated Co-op has boosted its clothing and housewares departments. A $250,000 contribution from the city and a $1.5 million loan from area banks are proof that the new store has the support of the city behind it.

While the Yale Bookstore will surely take away business, Berkowitz remains optimistic about the store's life after Broadway. "We've been here a long time serving one of the greatest universities in the world. The [new Co-op] is a more efficient, open space much more in tune with the concepts for building retail stores today," he said.

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