Strolling through Nike Portland, which opens Friday adjacent to Pioneer Courthouse downtown, is like traveling through a mid-20th Century fieldhouse mixed with a sense of cutting edge design.

In Nike parlance, this is a "brand experience" store. A mezzanine-level image of company co-founder Bill Bowerman gazes from 12-by-7-foot video wall, a statue of Michael Jordan soars overhead and the former Beaverton High School softball scoreboard serves as a giant tabletop. These neck-swiveling pieces serve as the attention-grabbing backdrop for sneakers and clothing from seven Nike sport categories. They complete the experience in the airy, 26-000-square-foot space.

But the store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Morrison Street downtown, the successor to the recently closed NikeTown Portland, represents more than that. Nike Portland is the latest in a string of new or refurbished stores the Oregon company has opened
nikepdxshoes.JPGView full sizeRandy Rasmussen / The OregonianA waffle-iron pattern serves as backdrop for a display of Nike running shoes as the Oregon-based footwear and apparel giant opens its new downtown flagship Nike Portland today. Running is one of seven sport categories featured in the 26,000-square-foot space.
over the last four years in an effort to set a more aggressive course in selling products directly to consumers. No retail middle man is needed, though Nike officials emphasize the strong ties the company retains with the likes of Foot Locker, Dick's Sporting Goods and The Sports Authority.

Nike's direct-to-consumer business -- sales in its own stores and on the web -- grew 16 percent last year to $3.2 billion. That's expected to grow to $5.5 billion by the end of fiscal year 2015 -- when $30 billion total revenue is projected. The company owns about 760 stores worldwide, expects to add nearly a hundred more by the end of 2015. Several others worldwide -- the company won't say how many -- sell Nike brand only but aren't owned by Nike. Meanwhile, the company grew its Web audience from 130 million visitors in 2010 to about 180 million this year.

The company is taking a straighter path to their consumers, Jeanne Jackson, president of Nike direct to consumer business, told investors at a meeting in June.

"It's the place where we realize that moment of truth," Jackson said. "Where we get the chance to interact with (consumers) one-on-one without anybody in the middle to make the story fuzzy."

It's clear upon entering Nike Portland that the store shares a "wow" factor with NikeTown's confined spaces. The new store includes several nods toward the history of a company nearly 40 years old.

Running, basketball, training and other merchandise is presented in a setting with few walls. The running shoes are positioned against a black background that's corrugated in the shapes of a waffle iron -- an homage to the historic birthplace of Bowerman's Nike waffle shoe. The soaring Michael Jordan statue suspended from the ceiling is the same one that once hung in NikeTown, but in recent years had resided in the Michael Jordan Building on the company's worldwide headquarters near Beaverton.

The "Bowerman Wall" perched on the mezzanine level is a combination of six large video screens, all of which feature a mosaic of 1,404 tiny images. At rest, some of the images form the face of Bowerman, the legendary University of Oregon track coach and Nike co-founder Phil Knight's business partner. Press one of a hundred tiny videos and a larger screen pops into view, telling part of the Nike story.