Business Community

JAX Salon thinks Peninsula Shopping Center will be aces for business

Peninsula Shopping Center in downtown Gig Harbor continues to scoop up new tenants. The latest business announcing it will set up shop there is JAX Luxury Salon, an established self-care emporium that currently operates from the Novak Hotel building (aka the old Harbor Inn) at the foot of Pioneer Way.

It’s a move that can elevate the 43-year-old JAX Luxury Salon to new heights. The salon’s size will grow by 80 percent, to 5,200 square feet. That allows the business to double its number of stylist chairs, bringing the total to 16. It will add offerings like pedicures and Japanese Head Spa service, and bring back massage, which has been absent since the COVID pandemic. JAX will continue to use, sell and vigorously endorse Aveda beauty products.

“Essentially we’ve become a full-service salon,” said Darren Swenson, the medical doctor who bought JAX Luxury Salon last spring. The new JAX location will open in late March or early April 2026. The existing shop will operate until then with no interruption in service, he said.

Peninsula Shopping Center revival

JAX’s arrival will add to a mini-renaissance underway at Peninsula Shopping Center. Sprawling over 5.6 acres in downtown Gig Harbor, the facility has seen its share of departing tenants in recent years, along with stalled redevelopment efforts.

But management has spruced up Peninsula Shopping Center and is courting new tenants aggressively. Since June, three new businesses – Big Nate’s Trading Cards, Club Pilates Gig Harbor and Fusion Donut Café – have arrived and are helping re-energize the 1950s-built retail plaza. JAX Luxury Salon’s footprint will equal that of these three other businesses combined.

The facility still needs more tenants. Many Gig Harborites won’t consider Peninsula Shopping Center complete until a grocery store moves into the now-empty 25,000 square foot anchor space.

But the plaza’s owners are in the mood to celebrate. Rush Companies, which owns the facility in partnership with members of the Milgard family, recently filed an application with the city of Gig Harbor to hold a “community block party” on from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sept. 26.

Time to party

If approved, the celebration will feature a food truck from Dick’s Drive-In, the beloved Seattle hamburger restaurant chain that is itself a 1950s-era classic (Dick’s served its first fast food in 1952, according to its website; Peninsula Shopping Center opened in 1958).

An item from the Tacoma News Tribune on April 3, 1958, announces the construction of the Peninsula Shopping Center.

The purpose of the block party is “to celebrate the completion of recent exterior renovations and to show support for our tenants and the surrounding community,” according to a letter sent to the city by Emily Frankland, leasing broker for Rush Properties.

The proposed “community celebration” will also “bring positive attention to the neighborhood while fully complying with city requirements,” Frankland wrote. (She did not respond to an email asking whether the event will be open to the general public.)

JAX Salon’s plans

JAX Luxury Salon is leaving nothing to chance with the impression its new, expanded premises will make. Swenson said the business has enlisted Michele Pelafas, an interior design and décor firm out of Chicago that specializes in working with spas, salons, wellness centers and related businesses.

The firm’s website lists Dior, Four Seasons, and The Ritz-Carlton among its clients and points to “hundreds of projects in [its] portfolio including award-winning designs.”

Michele Pelafas has already rendered interior design concepts for the new JAX Luxury Salon, which the business has mounted on foam board for display at its current location and is working into marketing materials for the new facility.

Design firm Michele Pelafas provided renderings of the new JAX Luxury Salon location in the Peninsula Shopping Center.

Considering the importance of the move, JAX Luxury Salon’s hunt for a new location was short. Swenson said he found the new space in just one month of searching.

Location in Peninsula Shopping Center

It helped that Swenson knew exactly what he wanted.

The new spot had to be a lot bigger than the existing JAX Luxury Salon. It had to be “down in the harbor,” where Jax’s clientele – some entering their fourth decade as customers — knew where to find them.

Swenson wanted JAX to be in a mature shopping center with other businesses and ample parking (this, along with the requirement to be downtown, must have looked like an arrow pointing directly at Peninsula Shopping Center).

A big selling point for the new space was its “strong visibility in the shopping center.” JAX Luxury Salon’s new storefront runs a full 50 feet between Mizu Japanese Steak House and Harbor Barber, with an ocean of floor-to-ceiling window glass.

JAX Salon is moving into space in the Peninsula Shopping Center between Mizu Japanese Steakhouse and Harbor Barber. Photo by Vince Dice

“For our business, we want to have people walking by and looking in,” and hopefully being drawn inside to become customers, Swenson said.

JAX Luxury Salon is adding to the experiences it offers, including four pedicure stations. It will have two rooms for Japanese Head Spa services, which are currently surging in popularity. These focus on scalp health, with treatments to promote relaxation, improve circulation, and enhance hair health. There will be another four rooms for esthetician and massage services, Swenson said.

Right now JAX Luxury Salon employs about 14 people but “we expect to have about 35 to 40” full-time employees when the new location is up and running and all employee slots are filled, he said.

JAX Salon will offer Japanese Head Spa services at its new Judson Street location.

Meet the Swensons

One key staff member is his son, Aidan, a 23-year-old Boston College graduate who is currently salon manager. “In essence, he’s a business partner,” Darren Swenson said.

Darren Swenson

A graduate of Ross University School of Medicine, Swenson, 56, said he sold his internal medical practice in 2021 to TeamHealth, a medical staffing and management company, and remains there as a national group president overseeing post-acute care. He will continue in this full-time medical role, which allows him to devote 15 to 20 hours per week to the salon, focused on operations, marketing, inventory, quality and guest experience.

Swenson said that he and his son “aspire to have JAX Luxury Salon be the single place where a guest can have many of their self-care goals met,” including haircut, color and style; facials, head spa for scalp and hair treatments, pedicures, and massage.

Although luxury spa services and internal medicine might seem worlds apart, “the common denominator of the medicine business and the salon is people,” especially listening to and communicating with people, he said.

“A salon is an extension of what we’re passionate about – about people and about service,” Swenson said.