Macy's announces new round of closings

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Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by wnetmacman »

This time, 68 stores. A list here: Macy's to Streamline

it isn't listed as a store closing list, but a 'Streamlining of the Portfolio'. Business jargon for store closings. This is on top of stores closed last year. Several Texas stores on the list, among other areas. Looks like they're leaving the second tier malls with reckless abandon.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by Brian Lutz »

I see the Everett Mall store made the list, which is not particularly surprising, as the mall has already been advertising an anchor vacancy for a while. The store is also just a few miles away from what I would presume to be a much better performing location at Alderwood. I wouldn't be surprised to see the mall's Sears store close soon as well, which would leave it with basically no anchor tenants aside from Burlington.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by pseudo3d »

All of the Texas stores were former Foley's stores, and unsurprisingly, all of them have struggled in recent years. (Greenspoint I'm not surprised to have FINALLY be biting the dust, Parkdale I thought was okay, Collin Creek I thought was rather nice).
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by architect »

pseudo3d wrote:All of the Texas stores were former Foley's stores, and unsurprisingly, all of them have struggled in recent years. (Greenspoint I'm not surprised to have FINALLY be biting the dust, Parkdale I thought was okay, Collin Creek I thought was rather nice).
Actually, a couple of the Texas stores are somewhat surprising. Southwest Center (Red Bird Mall), Greenspoint, Pasadena Town Square, and West Oaks are not surprising as all are in aging areas which have top-tier locations within a reasonable driving distance (somewhat of a lengthy drive for Southwest Center, but the surrounding neighborhood and retail areas have been in major decline for years which explains the closure). Collin Creek is actually in a rebounding trade area (East Plano is gaining momentum with it's proximity to the numerous large employers moving in along the Bush Turnpike in Richardson). However, this particular store is an an essentially dead mall with redevelopment plans yet to be announced. In addition, there are plenty of other Macy's locations in all directions within a reasonable driving distance. On the other hand, Macy's could be dropping a potential opportunity to be a part of a successful redevelopment if plans come to fruition relatively quickly, and in a rapidly growing trade area at that. Tyler and Beaumont are the big surprises, particularly Tyler. Beaumont's economy has been hurt by the decline in the oil industry over the last couple of years, which may explain its closure. On the other hand, Tyler's economy is still strong and growing, and the major shopping centers in Tyler pull from a wide trade area across Northeast Texas. My guess is that a combination of this store's small size and location (it is the only Macy's along the I-20 corridor between DFW and Birmingham) made it difficult to operate.

Also, as an interesting tidbit: the Southwest Center, Collin Creek, and Tyler stores all originally opened as Sanger Harris, which merged with Foley's in 1987. All three of these stores still feature a signature store design from the Sanger Harris era with a large mosaic behind arches at the entrances to the store. Sadly, after these Macy's closures, there will only be two of these former Sanger Harris stores still operating in Texas, and only one (Hulen Mall in Fort Worth) with these mosaics still intact.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by Super S »

A little perspective about a few stores I am familiar with:

Kelso, WA: At 51,000 square feet this is the smallest store on the list. A former Bon Marche, this store was limited by its small size compared to other stores in the region, and it did not help that this location is in the Three Rivers Mall which has been struggling since 2003 when Emporium closed (the space was vacant for 10 years) and has also lost Sears and most of the interior mall stores. It also doesn't help that the local economy has also struggled. Honestly I am surprised this one did not close earlier.

Everett, WA: The mall had mixed signals when I was in there about 4 years ago. There were some empty spaces but the mall seemed ok overall. I guess this could be considered a "second tier" mall.

Sandusky, OH: This mall seemed to be doing okay until the past year when Sears closed. Its location draws people visiting Cedar Point as well as Lake Erie, but Sandusky has seen some of its better paying jobs disappear. The store opened as a May Co. and was a decent size two story store. I hope that the decline of malls in Toledo haven't started spreading out.

Nampa, ID: This one surprised me. This was a new-build, freestanding store that opened in 2009 and replaced an old store, a former Bon Marche, in Nampa's Karcher Mall. Ironically enough, JCPenney opened a freestanding store in Nampa at around the same time, after leaving Karcher Mall in 1988 when Boise Towne Square opened.

Macy's, in my opinion, needs to differentiate itself. They tend to sell the same merchandise as others but have higher prices. There is no real reason to shop there.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by submariner »

On the plus side, they're opening a new Bloomingdale's in Kuwait and a Macy's & Bloomingdale's in Dubai, so I guess uh... there's that...

The Century City one isn't really new, it just replaces (via major remodel and square footage upgrade) a previously closed store. Century City also has a Bloomingdales.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by storewanderer »

Macy's really confuses me. Every year they "restructure" and seem to have some sort of major downsizing thing after the holidays. It appears every year it gets worse and more drastic. I don't know what to think, I think they have a strong brand and a good product mix. They seem to have a ton of people with in-house credit cards too. Most places I go, Macy's mix of products is much better than that of the other mall anchors (Sears or JC Penney) and with all of the sales/coupons Macys runs, you can do well there if you play your cards right and show up on the right day of the week at the right time. I also have had good experiences ordering from Macys.com last year a couple times; easy to place the order, accurate shipping, quickly, even included some free samples of skin care products.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by mbz321 »

storewanderer wrote:Macy's really confuses me. Every year they "restructure" and seem to have some sort of major downsizing thing after the holidays. It appears every year it gets worse and more drastic. I don't know what to think, I think they have a strong brand and a good product mix. They seem to have a ton of people with in-house credit cards too. Most places I go, Macy's mix of products is much better than that of the other mall anchors (Sears or JC Penney) and with all of the sales/coupons Macys runs, you can do well there if you play your cards right and show up on the right day of the week at the right time. I also have had good experiences ordering from Macys.com last year a couple times; easy to place the order, accurate shipping, quickly, even included some free samples of skin care products.
The Macy's brand is still strong in major cities, however outside of those, Macy's is really nothing special. Besides a couple of 'fancier' brands, it is the same crap you can pick up anywhere. They've really never really targeted a younger generation of shoppers. I know when I think of Macy's, it's a place where my mom or grandma would shop. As someone in their mid 20's, I can't think of the last time I've been in or bought anything at Macy's...besides the annoyance of driving to a mall, they just don't have anything that I couldn't easily get at Kohl's or Ross.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by Jeff »

Mission Valley is not a shocker. It has the more upscale cleaner modern store at Fashion Valley across the freeway. Sad to see another classic May Co building close though (even though they scaled the store to 2 levels).

Santa Barbara is a shocker. It always seemed like a busy store, but being downtown is hard to get parking to. The mall is also anchored by Nordstrom, so lets see what they do. They do have a larger store at the La Cumbre Mall. So one store in Santa barbara is more than enough.
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Re: Macy's announces new round of closings

Post by Brian Lutz »

I've found that Macy's seems to be a good place to look for good quality suits and dressier menswear without having to pay Nordstrom prices for it, but for more "everyday" type clothes I've found their prices rather high. They seem to focus mostly on semi-designer labels in those departments (stuff like Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren and Nautica come to mind) but most of the time it's just paying for the name, and I've never particularly cared about that type of thing.
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