Lord & Taylor, Crabtree Valley Mall, Raleigh, North Carolina. Mall entrance. Photographed with camera phone 7/15/05.Store scheduled to close in January, but lease was extended.
Sue Stock, Staff Writer
The News and Observer
RALEIGH, N.C. - The future of the Triangle's only Lord & Taylor store is muddled at best.
Store employees are telling customers the 120,000-square-foot store will close in mid- to late January. Some display cases are already empty.
But mall officials say Lord & Taylor's parent company, Federated Department Stores, hasn't notified them that the store will be closing.
There is still a small chance that the store could stay.The company exercised an option to extend its lease by five years, through Jan. 31, 2011. But the chain has committed to operate Lord & Taylor there only through next month. It opened at Crabtree in 1996.
"They have to pay rent, but they don't have to be open," said Monty Daniels, director of leasing for Plaza Associates, which manages the mall.
If it does close Lord & Taylor, Federated could sublease the vacated space, but the mall would have some say in the replacement tenant.
Plaza Associates has been considering a plan that would eliminate the department store anchor and replace it with 30 smaller stores. If that happens, Crabtree will be left with three department stores: Belk, Sears and Hecht's, which will become a Macy's next fall.
But Plaza can't move forward with that plan until Federated indicates what it wants to do.
"They have not responded," Daniels said. "We would like to know what they plan to do with it."
Federated spokeswoman Sharon Bateman said she had no announcement regarding the Crabtree store.
"Our philosophy is, until all the 'i's are dotted and all the 't's are crossed, we just don't comment," she said.
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