Victoria’s Secret Opens at Tanger Outlets Foley, With Pandora Due in November

FOLEY — Victoria’s Secret has opened at Tanger Outlets Foley, and Pandora Jewelry is set to follow in November, the outlet center said.

The two national brands are the latest additions to a tenant list that has turned over noticeably in recent months at the shopping complex along Alabama 59, which has been working through a multi-phase renovation.

What Is Opening and When

According to Tanger Outlets, the Victoria’s Secret store is already open. The Pandora store is scheduled to open in November, putting it in place for the holiday shopping season.

Victoria’s Secret occupies a 7,281-square-foot space near Ann Taylor, carrying the brand’s signature collections of lingerie, beauty products, body care and loungewear. The location also offers complimentary, one-on-one personalized bra fittings with trained experts.

That fitting service is not incidental to the business. Bra fitting is one of the few remaining retail categories where a trained employee measurably improves the outcome, and it is close to impossible to replicate online — which makes it exactly the kind of offering that gives a physical store a reason to exist in a market where the same merchandise can be ordered to a doorstep. For an outlet center competing for a vacationer’s afternoon, a service appointment is also a booking, and a booking is a guaranteed visit.

Pandora, the international jewelry brand, is scheduled to open a 2,000-square-foot store next to Bath & Body Works in November. The store will feature the brand’s signature hand-finished charm bracelets, along with rings, necklaces and earrings.

The footprints tell their own story about how the two categories work. Jewelry sells at high value per square foot from a small, secure, display-heavy space; apparel needs room for racks, fitting rooms and stock. A 2,000-square-foot jewelry unit and a 7,281-square-foot apparel unit are both normal for their categories, and placing the smaller store beside Bath & Body Works clusters two gift-driven, impulse-friendly retailers in the same stretch of walkway.

They join several other recent arrivals at the center. Tanger Foley recently welcomed Buckle and Toys “R” Us, and a Shake Shack location is also planned — a mix that spans apparel, toys and fast-casual dining rather than concentrating in a single category.

What the Center Says About the Additions

“We’re continuing to strengthen our retail mix with top national brands that resonate with our shoppers, while investing in updates that enhance the overall guest experience,” said Debra Brown, marketing director at Tanger Foley.

“Victoria’s Secret and Pandora bring new retail experiences that complement our existing lineup and reinforce Tanger Foley as the region’s premier shopping destination.”

Why Location on Alabama 59 Matters

The center’s position is central to its business. Alabama 59 is the main north-south route carrying beach traffic from Interstate 10 down through Baldwin County to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, which means a very large share of the visitors heading to Alabama’s beaches drive directly past Foley on the way in and on the way out.

That geography gives an outlet center in Foley a customer base that few inland shopping properties can match: a steady flow of vacationers with time to spend, plus a permanent residential market in one of the fastest-growing counties in the state. Rainy beach days and changeover days — when one set of renters leaves and another arrives — reliably push traffic inland to shopping.

How Outlet Centers Fill Space

Outlet retail operates on a different model from a conventional mall. Brands typically use outlet stores to move overstock, past-season merchandise and made-for-outlet lines at lower price points, which lets them reach shoppers who would not buy at full-line prices without discounting inside their primary stores.

For the landlord, the priority is a mix of recognizable names strong enough to make a stop worth a detour off the highway. Anchors in outlet centers are less about square footage than about drawing power — a handful of brands that a shopper will specifically plan around, surrounded by tenants that capture the rest of the trip.

The recent additions read as an attempt to broaden that draw. Apparel and jewelry aim at the traditional outlet shopper; a toy retailer and a fast-casual restaurant aim at families and at keeping visitors on the property longer, which is the single most reliable way to raise spending per visit.

The Scale of the Property

Tanger Foley is an upscale, open-air outlet shopping center in Baldwin County covering 532,000 square feet and housing nearly 100 stores and eateries. The existing lineup includes Nike, Crocs, TJ Maxx, J.Crew and Aerie.

That size puts it firmly in the large-format outlet category, and the open-air layout is characteristic of the model in the South: a series of low buildings arranged around walkways and parking rather than a single enclosed structure. The format is substantially cheaper to build and operate than an enclosed mall — there is no vast common area to heat, cool and staff — and it suits a climate where an outdoor walkway is comfortable for most of the year. It is also more forgiving of turnover, since individual storefronts can be renovated, subdivided or combined without disrupting the rest of the property.

Against a base of roughly 100 tenants, two national additions and a handful of recent arrivals represent a meaningful but manageable share of the lineup. Outlet centers turn over a portion of their tenants routinely; the question for a property is whether the replacements are stronger draws than what they succeeded.

A Renovation Running Alongside the Leasing

The complex has been undergoing a multi-phase renovation, and the timing of that work alongside new tenant announcements is not a coincidence. Physical upgrades and leasing tend to move together at shopping centers: refreshed common areas, signage and storefronts help attract national brands, and signed national brands help justify the capital going into the property.

The center says the ongoing renovations are designed to improve connectivity, upgrade dining and gathering areas, and modernize the exterior look of the complex.

Each of those three goals maps onto a known weakness of the older open-air outlet format. Connectivity is about how easily a shopper moves between buildings without returning to a car — the difference between one long trip and three short ones. Dining and gathering areas determine how long a visitor stays, and a center with nowhere comfortable to sit tends to lose the second half of an afternoon. Exterior modernization is the part a driver on Alabama 59 actually sees, and at a property whose customers are largely deciding on impulse, the view from the highway is the marketing.

Phasing the work also keeps the center open and earning through the process, which matters at a property whose peak revenue months are tied to a fixed tourist season.

The Baldwin County Retail Picture

Baldwin County has been among Alabama’s fastest-growing counties for years, and retail follows rooftops. Growth in Foley, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and the communities along the Alabama 59 and Baldwin County corridors has steadily raised the year-round population supporting stores that were once built almost entirely for seasonal traffic.

That shift changes what a shopping center can support. A property that depends only on summer visitors has a narrow window; one with a growing local base can hold tenants through the shoulder seasons and into the winter, which is when a November store opening starts to make particular sense.

What Shoppers Will Find Now

For the moment, the Victoria’s Secret store is open to shoppers. Pandora is scheduled to open in November, and the center’s renovation work continues in phases.

More Details on the Two Stores and the Renovation Around Them

Tanger Outlets Foley has released additional detail on both openings and on the construction work reshaping the center around them.

The Victoria’s Secret store occupies 7,281 square feet near Ann Taylor. Along with intimates, the store carries fragrances, body care and loungewear, and offers complimentary one-on-one bra fittings with specially trained Bra Fit Experts. No appointment is required for a fitting. Its beauty section stocks the brand’s scents, mists and fine fragrances.

Pandora will take a 2,000-square-foot space next to Bath & Body Works when it opens in November, carrying the hand-finished charm bracelets, rings, necklaces and earrings the brand is known for. Pandora began more than 40 years ago as a small jewelry shop in Copenhagen, Denmark, and now sells in more than 100 countries.

“We’re continuing to strengthen our retail mix with top national brands that resonate with our shoppers, while investing in updates that enhance the overall guest experience,” said Debra Brown, marketing director at Tanger Foley. “Victoria’s Secret and Pandora bring new retail experiences that complement our existing lineup and reinforce Tanger Foley as the region’s premier shopping destination.”

A Tenant List in Motion

The two brands follow other recent arrivals at the center, including Buckle and Toys”R”Us. Shake Shack is also planned as part of an expanding food and beverage lineup.

The Renovation Itself

The multi-phase renovation underway at the 532,000-square-foot center is aimed at improving how people move through the property and at updating its physical spaces. The work includes modernized exteriors, enhanced access points, and new dining and gathering areas, with particular attention to the connections between the retail wings and the food and beverage offerings.

The center is adding retailers and restaurants while that construction proceeds, with the stated goal of creating a more connected guest experience and reinforcing the property’s role as a community gathering place rather than only a shopping stop.

Update: More Retailers Arriving at Tanger Outlets Foley

The Victoria’s Secret and Pandora additions are part of a broader effort to improve the look and feel of the Tanger Outlet in Foley, and several other retailers are now in the mix.

Victoria’s Secret has opened a 7,281-square-foot store near Ann Taylor, bringing its intimates, fragrances, body care, loungewear and one-on-one bra fittings.

Next to Bath & Body Works, Pandora has claimed a 2,000-square-foot space for its signature hand-finished charm jewelry. That store is slated to open in November.

Also Coming

Other recent additions include Buckle, Toys “R” Us and the soon-to-open Shake Shack.

The Shake Shack addition is the one most likely to change traffic patterns at the center. Outlet malls are built around a shopping trip that lasts several hours, and food options determine whether visitors stay through lunch or leave to eat elsewhere. A recognizable fast-casual brand keeps that trip intact.

The Toys “R” Us return also reflects a broader retail pattern. The brand has reappeared in the United States through smaller-format stores and partnerships rather than the large standalone locations it once operated, and outlet centers are among the formats where those stores have landed.

Taken together — two national apparel and jewelry brands, a denim retailer, a toy store and a restaurant — the additions suggest Tanger is filling its Foley center across categories rather than concentrating in one.