Adidas Store Opens In Square

An Adidas athletic-wear store tip-toed into the Square Wednesday, becoming the latest corporate retail outlet to occupy a high-visibility storefront.

The store, located at the intersection of Mass. Ave and Plympton St., will sell a limited selection of Adidas brand sportswear and sports equipment products. Adidas' specialty is soccer clothing and soccer-related gear.

"This is a very important showcase store for us to present key categories of original lines for the brand," said Lee M. Cox, the director of Adidas East Coast stores who traveled to Cambridge for the opening. "We believe this store will be a great fit given the history and surrounding environment."

The store opened to little fanfare or advertisement. Company officials said they desired what is called a "soft" opening. But in the next few days, the store will blitz local newspapers with advertisements and tack fliers around campus to notify students of its presence.

Before Adidas moved in, a family owned business, Briggs and Briggs Music Store, had leased the space more than 100 years.

The music store moved late last spring, when steadily increasing rents forced them to relocate to 1784 Mass. Ave., near Porter Square.

"We have no bad feelings towards anybody, the rents have just gone up all around Harvard Square," said Briggs co-owner Paul Humphreys, whose father purchased the store in 1935. "That's just the way things are."

Adidas officials, who emphasized that they had nothing to do with Briggs' departure, promised not to change the character of the historic block.

"We want to keep the integrity of the area. We don't want to change its whole outlook," said Scott Thompson, the head manager for the new store.

"It certainly wasn't a case of [Briggs] getting kicked out...they left before we came. [Adidas] felt very strongly about doing this small.... We're not interested in the big box aspect, Cox added. "We wanted to keep a small boutique atmosphere."

Despite the store's low-impact opening, not everyone is happy with the addition of another big business chain store located in a spot where an independent business used to operate.

"It seems to fit the trend, like Abercrombie & Fitch and Pacific Sunwear taking the place of the Tasty, with chain stores moving in," said Jeni Chiu, who works at the Harvard Bookstore, across Plympton St. from the new store.

Others said they welcomed Adidas to the Square.

Armando L. Petruccelli '00, a varsity soccer player who has secured a part-time job at the store, said he believes students will benefit from the brand-name goods on sale.

"Since the Tasty left, the Square has become a new place, and retail stores have come in. The atmosphere has changed for the better," said Petruccelli. "Those stores weren't being used at all...[Students] would rather have a store like Adidas where we'd actually shop, rather than a small store only one or two kids used."

But other students passing by the store yesterday disparaged what they see is a continuing pattern of the Square's gentrification.

"Its a shame, the big businesses triumphing over small ones," said Danielle B. Charbonneau '03. "The privately-owned businesses that used to dominate Harvard Square, that once in fact characterized the Square, are now disappearing."

The Adidas Company, based in Germany, will run the store through its American branch.

It does not employ a franchise system, but rather gives control to a manager for each retail outlet.

Adidas is the renting space from the AD final club.