May Department Stores (St. Louis) has completed the purchase of 13 stores formerly operated by Montgomery Ward and has solidified its plans for nearly all the stores. The purchase includes stores in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso and Beaumont, Texas; Kansas City and Joplin, Mo.; Portland and Medford, Ore.; the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area; Lake Charles, La.; and Springfield, Ill. The intention to purchase had first been announced last month.
May plans to reopen most locations in 2002 after remodeling the stores. Seven will operate as new stores, and others will be expansions of existing May stores. Lord & Taylor, May's New York-based specialty department store division, will operate the store at Northeast Mall in Fort Worth, and by 2002 the three stores in the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolitan area, as well. Hecht's (Washington, D.C.) will operate the store at St. Charles Towne Center in Waldorf, Md., as an expansion of its existing store. Foley's (Houston) will operate the locations at Willowbrook and Baybrook in Houston, Golden Triangle in Dallas, Cielo Vista in El Paso, Parkdale in Beaumont and Prien Lake in Lake Charles. The Willowbrook location will operate as an expansion of the current Foley's store at that mall; the balance of locations are new. (Beaumont, El Paso and Prien Lake are completely new markets for Foley's, which will be operating a total of 47 stores in Texas and four in Louisiana by 2002.)
A new location for The Jones Store (part of St. Louis-based Famous-Barr) will open at Oak Park Mall in Kansas City. Meier & Frank (Portland, Ore.) will operate the locations at Clackamas Town Center in Portland and Rogue Valley Mall in Medford as expansions of its current stores at those malls. Along with the 2002 opening of the recently announced new store at The Shops at Tanasbourne, Meier & Frank will operate nine stores in Oregon, six of those in Portland. Plans have not been finalized for the Joplin and Springfield locations.
In January, May announced that it would purchase nine locations from Saks Inc. (Birmingham, Ala.) and would open 13 new stores in an aggressive expansion program. The retailer currently operates 435 department stores and 126 David's Bridal stores in 43 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.