Recently, 338-year-old Canadian retail giant Hudson’s Bay Company, which operates numerous chain nameplates such as discounter Zellers and The Bay department stores, received a takeover bid from U.S. retailer Lord & Taylor.  Already a minor shareholder in Hudson’s Bay Company, Lord & Taylor wouldn’t be the first American company to own this brand; the company is already owned by American Anita Zucker, whose late husband, Jerry, gained control of the company in 2006. 

On July 16, the sale was complete, and Hudson’s Bay is now part of the Lord & Taylor fold.  Now that Lord & Taylor has a more impressive foothold in North America, what - if anything - do you think will happen to the Hudson’s Bay name?  Will it float off into the ether like other venerable brands have over the years - Marshall Field’s, Filene’s, McAlpin’s - just to name a few - or will Lord & Taylor realize the brand has enough equity to keep it afloat? 

I, personally, wouldn’t want to see the Hudson’s Bay name disappear across Canada, but what I think hasn’t stopped retailers from shifting and consolidating nameplates in the U.S.  I think many people are still miffed about what Macy’s did over the past few years, taking away many regional banners and creating a “unified” Macy’s across the entire United States.  Was it worth it for them?  Time will tell, but the very reasons they used for unifying their holdings have been sort of left by the wayside, with separate, more upscale Macy’s locations popping up in certain places and not others.  The issue is probably more weighty in some places rather than others, too; for example, Chicago’s affinity for Marshall Fields has probably cost Macy’s more money and loyalty than the regional banners in other areas, but who can be so sure?  Only time will tell.

From the news bin:

Steve & Barry’s, whose wild success over the past five years has been every bit as puzzling as their business model and inventory of cheap goods, appears to be in deep trouble:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Retailer Steve & Barry’s LLC is readying plans to close more than 100 of its stores, and is contemplating a full liquidation should it not find emergency financing, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website on Monday.

The article, citing people familiar with the company, said the retail chain is seeking a tentative plan for about $40 million in debtor-in-possession financing if it must file for bankruptcy protection. Steve & Barry could not immediately be reached for comment.

Wal-Mart is notorious for their fairly unglamorous aesthetics; only Kmart is frequently considered worse. But Kmart always had one thing on ol’ Wallyworld, and that’s a slightly superior logo. But Wal-Mart is tossing out its ridged plastic letters in favor of something sort of retro:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is about to change one of the most familiar logos in corporate America.

Part of Wal-Mart’s continuing effort to update its once-dowdy image, the new logo for signs and building facades includes white letters on a burnt-orange background followed by a white starburst, according to an artist’s rendering that the company filed recently with planning officials in Memphis, Tenn.

In a change, the name will appear as one word: Walmart. When the company first started in 1962, the name was hyphenated by a dash. But in the past decade, the dash has been replaced by a star on stores and the corporate letterhead.

Hmm. The star reminds me mysteriously of Zayre. I wonder who else has ripped off that star.

There’s an interesting article in today’s Boston Globe about the impending demise of Jasmine Sola, a trendy, upscale women’s clothier that had until recently been on a meteoric rise. The story details how Jasmine Sola went from a carefully-curated boutique in Cambridge, Massachusetts to a booming regional chain known for its colorful stores and high-end (yet young-skewing) merchandise before being sold to New York and Company, who in only two years managed to overexpand and destroy the chain’s merchandise mix. The way they neglected to cater their merchandise mix to individual markets is also somewhat reminiscent to many of the complaints about the national strategy employed by Macy’s:

“Manganella, an Italian immigrant who started Jasmine in 1970 with a $2,500 loan from his mother, had relied on instinct, not science or financial spreadsheets. He learned about women’s clothing from his mother and sister, both seamstresses, and developed a keen sense of style. At Jasmine, named after the flower, he had given space to unknown designers, which made his boutique a fashion icon for teens and twentysomethings…

“Meanwhile, New York & Co. began changing the formula that made Jasmine a success, narrowing the number of brands offered, buying lower-end merchandise, and opening bigger stores. New York & Co. started outfitting all Jasmine stores with the same amount and type of items, eliminating another of Manganella’s innovations: merchandise tailored for each store, with lower-priced clothes for the college students shopping at Harvard Square, and higher-end clothes for Newton and Wellesley.

“The change meant a new Miami store received chunky sweaters and corduroy pants in the middle of the summer - the same back-to-school items Northeast stores featured, according to Liza Baird, who had worked at local Jasmine stores, and moved to Miami in April 2006 to open the first Jasmine shop in Florida. Sales were so poor, Baird said, that some days the store barely broke $1,000.”

There’s also quite a bit about the dispute between New York and Company and Jasmine Sola founder Luciano Manganella, who was fired after allegations of sexual harassment.

Jasmine Sola is just one of the retail closures we’re seeing this Christmas season, along with Levitz Furniture and CompUSA. KB Toys also announced a wide swath of store closures, which raises speculation that the chain may be history once the holiday season draws to a close.

It’s been a while since we offered anything other than shopping center write-ups, and we realize that part of the advantage of having a chronological blog is the ability to post current information.

In suburban Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a large upscale regional mall proposal called Pabst Farms Town Center is tenatively back on, but this time with a different developer and possibly a different format.  In October, Chicago-based General Growth Properties dropped the project, citing lack of interest for the upscale tenants the city wanted to attract, such as Nordstrom or Von Maur.  Today, Doris Hajewski writes in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the city has found a new developer in Developers Diversified Realty (DDR) of Cleveland.  However, DDR’s portfolio does not include high end department stores, and it was reported that the center will probably be open-air rather than enclosed as previously planned.  Yet the city of Oconomowoc is repeatedly pressing that the site not be just a collection of big box stores or any other sort of bland ephemera, like the development a couple exits to the east along I-94 at WI 83 in Delafield.Personally, this turn of events is kind of a let down.  The state of Wisconsin, which has an above average rate of growth, has not had a new regional mall constructed in over twenty years.  In fact, it has lost several in the same span of time.  More specifically to this project, Waukesha County is a fast-growing and wealthy county, with an estimate of 380,000 residents as of 2006.  Waukesha County currently has one regional shopping center, located in the far eastern side of the county in Brookfield; it was constructed over thirty years ago and is a simple one-level barbell design with three anchors.  

As the entirety of Waukesha County is suburban Milwaukee, residents also utilize the shopping options there, which have also dwindled in recent years and focus on Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa and Bayshore Town Center in Glendale.  However, as suburban growth has invaded Waukesha County, the county’s center of population has moved significantly west away from Milwaukee.  In addition, the towns closest to the center in the “Lakes” area are some of the wealthiest in the state. 

This project would simultaneously take advantage of both the center of population shift in Waukesha County and the lack of large regional centers in the area.  Located in western Waukesha County with easy access to I-94 and the new WI 67 bypass around Oconomowoc, the center would draw from a large and wealthy base, including rapidly growing areas along I-94 west all the way to Madison which is only 40 minutes away and the state’s second largest population center.  

So, the argument that the density is low in Oconomowoc and that no one would come is completley ludicrous.  People will travel to get to this type of center, if it’s made destination-worthy.  And, it sounds like it would have been and possibly will be if the city and others get their way.  They definitely have the right idea, and have been planning this project for years, even working with the WI Department of Transportation upgrading the interchange there and locating a business park with a future hospital at the southern end of the interchange.  I think it’s entirely appropriate for the city to send the message to developers that they don’t want another generic strip mall of big box stores; that sort of thing already exists a few miles down the road anyway and has been growing tremendously over the past several years.  

In addition, the shift from an enclosed mall portion to the development to open-air may reflect popular trends right now, but let’s get a few things straight.  For one, consider the average temperature in Wisconsin in January is 15 degrees.  Who wants to walk around a pretend-village going store to store in the winter?  Or even when it’s raining?  Or really hot?  That brings us to another point.  Many of these open-air “Lifestyle Centers” are the same vapid looking, whitewashed village downtown, often built in suburban areas on reclaimed farmland and consist of the same group of stores often found in enclosed malls.  What’s the deal with this?  These developments become even more ridiculous when the concrete sea of parking lots surrounding them really makes them nothing better than glorified strip malls; they aren’t that nice.  Let’s not have one of these?

In other news, Levitz Furniture appears to be closing up shop following an auction of its assets.  The New York-based chain has also given many employees hints they may be permanently layed off in January, even though the winning bidder has not indicated whether they will liquidate the stores and give up, or resume doing business.  Levitz has not been doing well for some time, having scaled back significantly from having a nationwide operation several years ago to focusing on core markets on the west coast and New York metropolitan area today.  

And finally, a little bit of fun.  We’ve unearthed a vintage mall tour from 1987 of the now-defunct Crystal Point Mall in Crystal Lake, Illinois, posted on YouTube.  Located about 40 miles northwest of Chicago, Crystal Point Mall existed from 1976-1998 and was McHenry County’s only regional enclosed mall.  It was anchored by Joseph Spiess and Robert Hall Village, which later became K-Mart.  In 1996, Spiess went out of business and K-mart soon closed off their mall entrance, and the mall’s in-line stores slowly vacated as their leases weren’t renewed because the owner wanted a strip mall with big box stores, and not an enclosed mall.  You can read more about Crystal Point Mall at Lisa’s neat retro page all about the mall, complete with photos.  

(photo via trummerkind.com)

As some of you have noticed, we’ve been having some server issues the past few days. That’s part of the reason we haven’t gotten much content up lately, but trust me, we’re working on something pretty neat.

Here’s some miscellany to tide you over, in case you’re starving for some mall-related reading:

An artist who set up a secret apartment inside of the Providence Place Mall in Providence, Rhode Island gets probation. Usually when people talk about apartments or condos at the mall, this isn’t what they have in mind:

“Michael Townsend, 36, said he and seven other artists built the apartment in a 750-square-foot loft in the parking garage four years ago and lived there for up to three weeks at a time while documenting mall life.

“The apartment included a sectional sofa and love seat, coffee and breakfast tables, chairs, lamps, rugs, paintings, a hutch filled with china, a waffle iron, TV and Sony Playstation 2 — although a burglar broke in and stole the Playstation last spring, Townsend said. The artists built a cinderblock wall and nondescript utility door to keep the loft hidden from the outside world.”

You can read about the clandestine mall apartment, watch a video about it, and see some photos at a website they established for it. According to a whois search, their site has been online since February. And it took mall management that long to find it?

(photo from CNN.com)

Also, this isn’t mall-related, but it is about a unique piece of 20th century commercial architecture that’s been saved:

“As in the Tee Pee Motel, a throwback to the 1940s and ’50s, when taking a drive was still in style and roadside businesses used gimmicky architecture — like a gas station that looked like an oil derrick — to lure customers. The Tee Pee Motel is one of just a handful of tepee-themed lodges left in the country.

For years, however, Wharton’s Tee Pee Motel was little more than eleven gutted shells engulfed by a tangle of overgrown weeds and a broken sign that once beckoned guests with neon lights and an image of an American Indian chief.”