Macy's to focus on key markets in 2012

NEW YORK — Macy’s Inc. announced a strategic plan on Wednesday to open new stores in select markets as well as to close a series of underperforming units. As part of the plan, five Macy’s department stores will be shuttered in spring 2012 – in Topeka, Kan.; Laurel, Md.; Parma, Ohio; Antioch, Tenn.; and Texas City, Texas. Five new Macy’s stores will open in 2012 and 2013.

“We continue to be committed to maintaining a healthy portfolio of stores that allows us to focus on growth from our best and most productive locations,” said Terry J. Lundgren, Macy’s chairman, president and CEO. “This requires us to make some difficult decisions to close stores that no longer meet our performance requirements, as well as to open stores where we see opportunity.”

The company said that Bloomingdale’s will close four stores in early spring 2012: at Perimeter Mall in Atlanta; in Oak Brook, Ill.; in North Bethesda, Md.; and at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

As previously announced, a new Bloomingdale’s will open in Glendale Galleria in Glendale, Calif., as well as in Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif., which is slated to open spring 2014.

The new Stanford Shopping Center store will be built in a smaller format similar to Bloomingdale’s stores opened in recent years in SoHo (New York), Chevy Chase, Md., and Santa Monica, Calif.

Five new Bloomingdale’s Outlet stores will open in 2012, each with about 25,000 sq. ft.