Byline: ALAN D. ABBEY Business editor GUILDERLAND Lured by lavish promotion, including major league sports stars and airplanes carrying banners with the company name, several thousand Capital Region residents turned out Thursday for the grand opening of Nobody Beats The Wiz, anelectronics retailer, at Crossgates Mall.
The 62,500-square-foot store, the Carteret, N.J., company's first in the Capital Region, had autograph-seeking fans lined up at 7 a.m. in front of closed doors. By 10 a.m., when Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings cut a ceremonial ribbon, several thousand were on hand.
Many of those waiting poured into the store, but others remained in line to wait for sports stars such as former New York Giants quarterback Phil Simms and New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing.
Shoppers were looking at everything from compact disks to giant televisions with theater-quality sound systems. The store bills itself as a ``total entertainment superstore'' and carries computer games, cellular telephones, computers, audio and video products and other related items.
Numerous officials of Nobody Beats The Wiz patrolled the store's crowded aisles Thursday in an attempt to make sure that the day's events went off without a hitch. Among them were company owners Lawrence and Marvin Jemal, who flew up from corporate headquarters.
``We're very proud of this store and very proud to be in Albany,'' Lawrence Jemal said. ``New York is where we started, and we are happy to have arrived in the capital of the greatest state in the Union.''
The Jemals founded the company in downtown Brooklyn in 1976 and now operate a total of 63 stores, primarily in metropolitan New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The closest store to Albany is in Middletown, but negotiations are underway to expand to Poughkeepsie.
Mark Bernstein, senior vice president for the electronics retailer, described the Crossgates store as among the largest in the company's portfolio.
Bernstein said the grand opening hoopla, which was preceded by a so-called ``soft opening'' a week ago designed to make sure the store's operations are smooth, was a way of ``getting to know the people and getting people to know us.''
He said that the company likes to make its openings splashy because ``shopping is an event. We're in the entertainment business.''
Bernstein declined to discuss the company's sales expectations for the store or how much it spent renovating the space.
The retailer, housed on the ground floor of the space once occupied by Filene's, spent the last eight months redesigning a space gutted for it by the mall's owners. The design entertainment software such as compact disks and videos in the store's center surrounded by such hardware as televisions, air conditioners and the like is a prototype for others the company hopes to build.
Among the first-day visitors pleased by what they saw were Pyramid Crossgates general partners Michael Shanley and Robert Ungerer. The mall developers had been in negotiations and consultations with Nobody Beats The Wiz for the better part of a year. With completion of the new store, Crossgates is now 95 percent full.
``It's great to see the people here,'' said Ungerer.
Mall manager Charles A. Breidenbach said the store will be a substantial draw to the giant shopping center. He smiled as he saw the long line of autograph seekers snaking through the mall's corridors.
``They'll sell a lot of food, at least,'' he said of other mall stores. Ungerer said Klein's All Sports, a sporting goods store, took advantage of the static line of autograph hounds to sell autographable sports items.
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Times Union/STEPHEN WEAVERSALESMAN Richard Hammerhoff at Nobody Beats The Wiz works with Brian, Grace and Marc Marmulstein of Albany Thursday.
Times Union/STEPHEN WEAVERSHOPPERS check out the merchandise Thursday at the grand opening of Nobody Beats The Wiz in Crossgates Mall. Autograph-seeking fans lined up outside the 62,500-square-foot store at 7 a.m. to meet sports stars.
