1st new Chicago-area location in a decade
By Becky Yerak
Chicago Tribune staff reporter
For the first time in six years, Marshall Field's plans to cut the ribbon on a new store.
The department-store chain will open a location in a new outdoor mall in Bolingbrook in 2007--making it the first new outlet for Field's in the Chicago area in more than a decade.
Opening new department stores at malls has become an oddity recently as shoppers increasingly turn to specialty stores and freestanding discount chains like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp.
Only two new enclosed malls are expected to open in 2005, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers. And the total number of malls across the country could eventually drop from about 1,130 today to 900, the group says.
Field's choice of the 121-acre Promenade at Bolingbrook is notable because most of Minneapolis-based Field's 62 full-service stores are in enclosed malls.
Mall stalwarts such as J.C. Penney Co. and Sears Holdings Corp. have begun looking for a change of scenery, including opening more "off-mall" stores. Sears, for example, had been "stuck on 870 stores for 35 years" until a March merger with Kmart Holding Corp. enabled it to expand away from shopping malls on a massive scale, Sears CEO Alan Lacy said recently.
Field's, however, is hardly fleeing from the nation's malls. Earlier this month, it announced an expansion of a store in the Detroit suburb of Novi, Mich.--the first renovation of a Field's store since its flagship State Street store in downtown Chicago in 2003.
Field's growth comes amid a pickup in its financial fortunes. Under the previous ownership of Target Corp., Field's sales sagged even as Target poured millions of dollars into reviving the chain after buying it in 1990. In July 2004, Target sold the chain to May Department Stores Co., a struggling department-store operator whose chains include Lord & Taylor.
But Field's finished last year with a 3 percent rise in same-store sales, a Field's executive told a Retail Advertising & Marketing Association conference in Chicago in February. "We've turned it around," said Gregory Clark, Field's vice president of creative services.
In February, Federated Department Stores Inc., parent of Bloomingdale's and Macy's, announced that it was buying Field's parent, May, in one of a spate of retail deals that have occurred since early 2004.
Other department store chains are taking different tacks to expand.
Macy's, which recently mounted its first national advertising campaign, announced a partnership Tuesday with Amazon.com Inc. The Internet retailer will sell everything from exclusive Macy's brands, like INC apparel and Hotel Collection bedding, to a wide selection of jewelry, clothing and beauty products.
"With everything going on in terms of consolidation--both official and unofficial--retailers with their feet still on the ground are being more aggressive about keeping their brands in the bull's-eye of the shopper," said Wendy Liebmann, president of WSL Strategic Retail in New York.
She's not surprised that Field's newest store is in an outdoor center.
"They have greater convenience, or at least a perception of greater convenience," she said. "When you look at new locations for malls or stores, at the top of the list of places to evaluate are outdoor malls or lifestyle centers rather than typical suburban malls."
Field's 62 stores are in eight states, with 17 in Illinois.
The Promenade is at Boughton Road near Interstate 355 and the Interstate 55 exit. Construction of the new two-level, 180,000-square-foot store will begin this fall. By Field's standards, that'll be a midsize store. The Promenade's first phase will be completed in fall 2005.
"We're always looking for new and exciting opportunities, and this was an opportunity to expand our presence in Chicago," said Jennifer McNamara, a spokeswoman for Field's in Minneapolis.
It will be Field's first new full-blown department store in the Chicago area since the opening of its Northbrook Court store in 1995. The retailer's last store opening came in 1999, in Grandville, Mich.
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