Crabtree store is among 32 targeted
Sue Stock, Staff Writer
The News & Observer
Federated Department Stores finally set a date to close the Triangle's only Lord & Taylor.
Employees were told that the 120,000-square-foot store in Raleigh's Crabtree Valley Mall will close Feb. 28. It opened in 1996.
Federated spokeswoman Sharon Bateman said there will be a liquidation sale, though she wasn't sure when it would start.
The store closing was announced as part of a 32-store reduction in 2003, but since then, Federated has extended the store's lease by five years and refused to set a closing date until now.
Lord & Taylor's departure could open up several options for redesigning the mall. Crabtree officials have considered a plan to replace Lord & Taylor with a series of smaller stores and restaurants, leaving the mall with three department stores: Belk, Sears and Hecht's, which will become Macy's in the fall.
But because Lord & Taylor's lease goes through January 2011, there will be negotiations with Federated about the remaining lease term, said mall marketing director Sandra Geist.
"Right now, we're just looking at different options because we don't know what's going to be happening with Lord & Taylor," she said.
The store closing also could clear the way for a mall expansion that Crabtree has had on the back burner for two years.
Crabtree officials want to add a second-story parking deck and space for nearly 74,000 square feet of new shops and restaurants between Belk and the smaller building that houses Barnes & Noble. The bookstore building would gain a second story as part of those plans. But the expansion was put on hold until the future of Lord & Taylor could be determined.
"Lord & Taylor is obviously part of the mall, and we wanted to look at the mall as a whole and have as many options as possible," Geist said.
I really think Crabtree would do better trying to improve their out posts..and perhaps even going with another color scheme. The mall itself inside is great-its the outside that leaves something to be desired.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The exterior of the mall is very ugly. Most of the stuff they added after 1994 has helped, but what’s not covered up is pretty nasty.
ReplyDeleteI think they're going to get a whole new look soon though. With both Lord & Taylor and Toys-R-Us closing soon, they're probably going to completely change the design of the mall's exterior. There were already some plans for it before, and I think they'll enhance them.