A new retail look for Goodwill’s store
by RaeAnne Marsh

The retail project nearing completion on Happy Valley Road at 16th Avenue already exhibits architectural aspects similar to the area’s major retail center a couple of miles to its west. Project developers wanted it to blend with the Happy Valley Towne Center, according to Sherm Cawley, of Phoenix-based Cawley Architects, who designed the building for Goodwill Industries.

“We incorporated elements of the (Towne Center’s) vocabulary to make it part of a larger retail context,” explained Cawley. The roofline will be accented with cornices at the corners as well as atop the prominent structure marking the entrance. And the entrance shape is repeated, although less pronounced, around the building, which results in visually breaking the single large building into a more differentiated store front of smaller components.

Metal canopies also recall the façade of the Towne Center, as does the use of natural slate. The slate will be used primarily at either side of the entrance, on columns that will support the canopies. As a design element, the slate is picked up again in a band at the lower edge of protruding walls.

Below the EIFS (Exterior Insulating Finish System) cornices, the building is masonry construction, and the high-end look of the exterior gains from the finish this imparts. Banding of rough-textured split-face block alternates with single-score block, further enhancing the color variation of the exterior’s desert colors.

It’s a new look for Goodwill stores in Arizona, and part of a new approach to be premiered at this Happy Valley location. “It’s the first of its type in Arizona,” confirmed Tim O’Neal, vice president of Retail Operations. In fact, this ongoing two-year project stands as the first new-build in Arizona.

The store sits on a two-acre site on the main thoroughfare of Happy Valley Road east of Interstate 17. “It’s an incredible area,” said O’Neal, explaining Goodwill Industries’ attraction to the location. The already-fast-growing population is expected to boom even more. “It’s a great place for drive-by with respect to the donor base,” he explained, adding that the company looks for locations not just where the customers are, but where the donors are.

Speaking of donors, the new building will include an innovation designed to make dropping off items much more convenient for donors: a drive-through donation center. Designed after the drive-through style of pharmacies, this Goodwill drive-through will feature a bell that will notify an attendant inside the store that a donor has pulled up. The attendant will take the donations from the car and provide a receipt so the donor need not even exit the car.

A full 4,000 square feet of the building’s interior is designed to be a production room where the donated items will be processed. This size will handle the anticipated volume allowing the store to put out 10,000 new items daily.

Most of the remainder of the building will present an open, free-flowing shopping experience. The 14,000-square-foot sales floor provides ample space to display more than 100,000 items, including clothing, furniture, and bed and bath merchandise. Twenty-foot runs of racks will give customers conveniently spaced aisle breaks.

One thousand square feet of the building is earmarked for a coffee bar area and a kids’ play area. And the interior’s polished concrete floor and custom-matched colors will contribute to a look that is more retail than thrift store, which Goodwill now promotes.

But possibly the most striking feature of the store’s interior will be the six skylights. They will be octagonal in shape and eight feet in diameter. “These are ecologically friendly, and will help reduce energy costs,” said O’Neal.

Upper clerestory windows will also allow natural daylight to reach the sales floor. Extensive glass at the front entrance further avails the store natural light.

Eighty parking spaces will serve the store, most of them in front of the building. In addition to a driveway from Happy Valley Road, there will be a driveway from 16th Avenue and one from the rear of the property.

The store is scheduled for a late summer opening. This will be a model for four other from-the-ground-up Goodwill stores soon to be built in the Valley. Cawley Architects teamed up with local development company LGE to provide a design-build service to Goodwill Industries to deliver these projects.