In the Wall Street Journal’s commercial real estate section, Anton Troianovski has an interesting note about the forthcoming Urban Outiftters store set to open at 2629 Broadway (near 100th Street) this fall. Instead of the store’s usual facade, it is going to have four faux storefront facades: bodega, bar, hat store and hardware store.

A chain store trying to make some sort of ironic comment about the disappearance on Mom & Pop stores in Manhattan depresses me a little, but I have to say that the branding firm Pompei A.D. has done a pretty spectacular job on the facades. (Thanks to Boing Boing for pointing me toward the article.) An excerpt from the WSJ piece:

“Philadelphia-based retailer Urban Outfitters plans to split the facade of a new store on the Upper West Side into four distinct ‘storefronts’: a hat store, a hardware store, a neighborhood bar and a bodega.

‘The whole idea was to do this kind of ironic statement of lining the building with storefronts that would be reminiscent of independent businesses,’ says Ron Pompei, creative director of Pompei A.D., which designed the store, slated to open in August. ‘It’s the story about the streets of New York as they once were.'”