Big Plans from Urban Outfitters/Terrain

Ellen C. Wells

We knew it would happen at some point: Urban Outfitters is opening a third Terrain location. But I’m not sure how many folks expected this news: The Terrain garden center will be part of a “lifestyle center” that will also include an Anthropologie (also an Urban Outfitter brand), a boutique hotel, two restaurants and a bunch of complementary shops. And all of this planned for the 6.5 acres that is the former location of Waterloo Gardens in Devon, Pennsylvania. The Main Line Media News is calling this complex the “downtown” that Devon has never had.

Urban Outfitters (UO for short) is leasing the former Waterloo property from its current owners, developer Eli Kahn and partner Wade McDevitt. Said an UO executive about the project: “We’re expanding our bricks-and-mortar retail experience to a lifestyle experience that will meet the taste level of the Devon community.”

UO plans to do its thing with two of its brands—Anthropologie for fashion and home accessories, and Terrain for plants, accessories and a farm-to-table café. The remaining space within this lifestyle center will be subleased to assorted other operations: a fine dining restaurant, a mid-level restaurant, a specialty foods market, a spa/wellness facility and/or a boutique exercise studio.

UO will be partnering with an as-yet-unnamed hotel operation to open and operate “a handcrafted, authentic and unique” hotel that UO says will be the driver of this village concept. And in the spirit of UO’s and Terrain’s commitment to using reclaimed materials and found objects to create an ages-old aesthetic, the hotel will be constructed using the skills of Amish stonemasons.

Devon Yard’s grand opening is projected for April 2016. Just in time for a spring opening. Better get those stonemasons on the job ASAP. The first two Terrain operations are in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania and Westport, Connecticut. GP