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J.C. Penney coming back to Citadel Mall
By Kathleen Dayton
Staff Writer
It’s round two for J.C. Penney as the department store chain opens its doors at Citadel Mall for the second time in 12 years.
J.C. Penney left Citadel Mall in 2001, but has operated a department store at Northwoods Mall since 1994. The century-old chain first entered the Charleston market in 1934 with a store at 240 King St., now the site of Charleston Place Hotel.
The company’s new two-level store opens Sept. 30 in an anchor space formerly occupied by Parisian, a department store chain. A grand opening is planned for Oct. 5.
What shoppers will find inside the new 128,000-square-foot Penney will not be anything similar to Parisian. Belk bought the Parisian chain in 2006 and the store was closed because Belk already has a store at Citadel Mall.
J.C. Penney purchased the Parisian building and totally demolished the interior except for the elevators, escalators and restrooms.
Store manager Ron Worley said the store will feature a 20-chair hair salon, a portrait studio, an optical shop, a fine-jewelry counter and shoe department near the mall entrance, and a lingerie department with purple wallpaper and floor-to-ceiling mirrors.
It will also feature an oversized home goods department on the second floor, which, Worley said, is a reaction to residential growth in the West Ashley area.
“If you shopped Parisian, you’ll notice everything is different,” Worley said.
J.C. Penney is also launching a new concept in its children’s department called Fresh Face, using bold colors and signage, cartoon-like mannequins and fun mirrors in the fitting rooms.
Worley, who has 26 years’ experience in retail, said the most challenging aspect of opening a new store is planning the timeline.
“If you get things in too early, construction’s in the way and if you get things in too late, you run the risk of not being able to train your people before you open,” he said.
Worley is training 160 full-and-part-time employees for the store, including a couple of former Parisian employees. Trucks have been delivering merchandise three times a day.
Leigh Burnett, manager of Citadel Mall, said the transition from Parisian to J.C. Penney was one of the quickest turnarounds she has seen.
“Typically, an anchor space sits a lot longer,” Burnett said. “The last thing you want is a dark anchor for any length of time, so it’s very, very positive. I think it’s a good fit for the mall and for our shoppers. They have wanted (J.C. Penney) back since it left.”
Citadel Mall opened in 1981 with anchors Belk, Sears and Thalhimers.
J.C. Penney opened in the mall in 1995 in the original Thalhimer’s space, which had become a Dillard’s department store.
The space was vacated when Dillard’s built a new anchor space at the mall. J.C. Penney moved in and operated for six years before closing the Citadel Mall location in January 2001.
At the time, J.C. Penney Co. Inc. had begun to experience slipping sales across the nation. The company began to implement new business strategies, freshening its merchandise and remodeling stores.
On Feb. 14 of this year, J.C. Penney launched its “Every Day Matters” advertising campaign during the broadcast of the Academy Awards. Analysts and company officials now say the company has completed a turnaround.
“They’ve been really hot for three or four years now,” said trends analyst Britt Beemer, founder and chief executive of Charleston-based America’s Research Group, a consumer research and consulting firm.
J.C. Penney spokeswoman Nicole Falagrady said the company intends to open 250 new stores through 2011, mostly in freestanding formats rather than in malls. That makes the new Charleston store an anomaly.
“Penney must see a huge opportunity in the marketplace, or they wouldn’t be opening up a store in a mall, which is not their new strategy,” Beemer said. “I’m sure they’re going to do well because Penney has always done well in markets with married-with-children population. That fits their demographics well.”
J.C. Penney forecasts its September same-store sales, or sales in stores open at least a year, to increase in the low single digits. The forecast for October is an increase in the mid-to-high single digits.
Company officials blamed a 4% drop in August sales on a “challenging macro-economic environment,” although the dip was less than the 5.2% analysts were expecting. Stock prices have been on the rise, and August online sales increased 23.9%
Falagrady said the company exceeded its 2007 sales goal early with $19.9 billion in sales last year. She said the company is now in a growth phase.
“We brought in new leadership and took a fresh look at everything,” Falagrady said.
“We made some harsh decisions, we closed some stores and regrouped and got where we wanted to be.”
Kathleen Dayton is a staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail her at kdayton@charlestonbusiness.com.
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