Sephora opens March 26 in Provo

(Daily Herald) Fans of Sephora, a San Francisco-based cosmetics and perfume retailer, can look forward to the opening of a new store in Utah next month.

Sephora, a division of Paris-based luxury products group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is opening a new store inside J.C. Penney Co. at the Provo Towne Centre on March 26. The cosmetics company entered the Utah market in 2008 with the opening of a 500-worker distribution center in Salt Lake City as well as its first Utah "store-within-a-store" at a Riverdale J.C. Penney.

Sephora, which became the exclusive cosmetics vendor for J.C. Penney in fall 2006, currently has 155 locations nationwide, each about 1,500 square feet, inside the department stores. Globally, Sephora operates about 980 stores including 256 in the U.S.

Mary Hall, manager for J.C. Penney in Provo, said the new Sephora, which is adding 12 workers, will be larger than the typical store at 2,300 square feet, and is part of a remodeling of the 11-year-old department store that began in September. Construction of Sephora began on Jan. 5.

Of the six J.C. Penney stores in Utah, the Provo location was chosen because of its proximity to Brigham Young University and the student demographic that J.C. Penney and Sephora are looking to attract, she said.

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