Gray shingles, white trim, soft florals and a beachy vibe — it’s the quintessential Hamptons house, and the inspiration for one of Target’s newest stores.
This October, we opened our first store on eastern Long Island’s East End, in the hamlet of Bridgehampton, New York. It’s a journey that started more than seven years ago, when we were searching for a site that would allow us to serve guests in the coastal community.
“It’s really hard to find sites that will work for Target, but the market, the demand has always been there,” says Brandt U., regional real estate director, of the Long Island area. The closest Target was in Riverhead, about an hour-plus drive away. That’s when our real estate team found the perfect opportunity — a 90,000-square-foot building in the only large shopping center in the Hamptons.
There truly was one site that would work for us.
This was just the start of a multiyear effort by our real estate, construction, store design, merchandising and operations team members to give Bridgehampton its first Target.
“I’m one of the few people that sees it from the very inception of an idea of a store there, all the way to handing it over to the store team and watching them putting the final touches on to open it to our guests,” says Genevieve M., senior project manager, construction. “The build out, figuring out, solving problems and watching the transformation — we are very lucky to have teams that like to collaborate. It makes the job a whole lot more fun to do and get up every morning.”
Our Bridgehampton store is one of eight new stores we’re opening this fall — each one delivering Target’s style, design and value, elevated guest experience, and good paying jobs. For Bridgehampton, the path to opening day came with a unique twist: transforming the existing space into a store that delivers the Target experience while still reflecting the beach community.
Designed to delight
While Target approaches most new stores based on a standard prototype, we also can flex with the needs of a community. For example, in San Clemente, California, we worked with the local design board to create an external design that complemented the city’s white stucco, red clay-tile roofed Spanish Colonial Revival architecture.
“It’s all about building an emotional connection,” says Ken M., principal architect of store design, “and making guests want to come back and feel like you understand their community and that you’re happy to be part of their community.”
In Bridgehampton, that meant working within the town’s design guidelines, which emphasized an understated, coastal aesthetic, while letting the Target brand shine through. The store design team — made up of architects, graphic and interior designers, and store planners — found their inspiration in the “Hamptons house.”
The team crafted an exterior design that connects the building to its community — think gray shingles trimmed in white. Other design touches inside completed the transformation.
The goal for all these design touches: Make Target’s Bridgehampton store timeless, so that it can bring joy to guests for years to come. “The design fits into the pillars that we always try to maintain: You want to be current, you want to be on trend, but you also don't want to be too far out there that in two years it's dated,” Ken says.
Building a new team
Turnover Day — when the contractor turns over the keys of our new store to its new team — is always memorable. For Adriana F., store director for Bridgehampton, it was also an opportunity to see the end result of those many years of hard work.
“My first impression of the Bridgehampton store is it just feels like the Hamptons, but also just feels like Target,” she says.
And now, it’s time for the store’s team to fully bring Target’s elevated guest experience to life.
Bridgehampton’s Target: It puts us one step closer to our goal of having more than 2,300 stores by 2035 across the United States. It’s a one-stop shop for guests to find Target’s style, design and value; a launchpad for its team to build rewarding careers; and a new gathering place for the community.
