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Starbucks Planning New Store Design for 2009

Starbucks is a business that is undergoing a major transition. After years of exponential growth and product evolution, the company is struggling to maintain its identity as a coffee-first business, and is also grappling with sluggish profit numbers. Starbucks recently announced closure of hundreds of stores, they've brought back an old nostalgic logo and are aggressively working on streamlining their products. CEO Howard Schultz is now back at the helm after leaving the job in 2000 and he's wasting no time making changes to their core business. He says rather bluntly, Starbucks needs to change their ways...

“We’re not this young, beloved, entrepreneurial enterprise anymore… We have to do business in a different way.” - Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

One of the bigger initiatives currently being worked on at Starbucks HQ is a new footprint and aesthetic for their stores. Can you imagine the magnitude of having to re-design the master template for over 15,000 stores? Architect Magazine didn't bother waiting for Starbucks to release their own design, instead they asked five teams of architects to come up with their own ideas. Everyone seems to feel Starbucks has diversified too much, so one of the biggest themes that is echoed both by Schultz's recent corporate moves, and from Architect Magazine's design teams is that of a return to a strict focus on coffee.

Starbucks is the Elvis of coffee: a remarkable original with a dedicated following, eventually bloated by success and sycophancy. Starbucks will have to evolve to remain the leader, and changing the “physical plant” should be a priority.

Our new chain has a new name: *$. *$ is based on differing paces and differing social relationships to the product and the place. *$ creates two sets of gradated experiences: fast to slow, social to private. It welcomes those of us who want our fix immediately and to go, as well as those of us who want to savor the coffee and sit for a bit (or all day) to write the great American novel - or just do a bit of e-mailing.

The fake-casual current stores are a homey (or homely) attempt to induce chattiness and engender a homemade, local feel. The new stores are quite the opposite: simple, fast, efficient, universal. No more cups and mugs for sale, no more music CDs (which should be a separate business), no more coffee machines and bagged beans, no more decorative bric-a-brac. Just coffee, food, service, newspapers, and the aroma of coffee.

Will Starbucks be able to make the right changes to revitalize their brand and their revenues? With a new store design expected to be finalized and announced in 2009, we're not far off from seeing Starbucks vision for the coffee shop of the future.

source Architect Magazine

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