Lord & Taylor Closing Up to 10 Stores Including Fifth Ave.

NEW YORK CITY—Grappling with changing times in retail, Lord & Taylor, America’s oldest department store, is closing up to 10 stores through 2019, including its Fifth Avenue location.

Meghan Biango, director, corporate communications at Hudson’s Bay Company, the Canadian retailer that owns Lord & Taylor, tells GlobeSt.com this includes not going forward with the scaled-down Lord & Taylor at 424 Fifth Ave. The iconic, classic American retailer had previously planned to maintain a smaller footprint in the store when it announced the sale of its flagship store to the co-working and office space company WeWork for $850 million, back in October.

“We are taking action to reposition Lord & Taylor for improved results and increased profitability. Our focus on driving Lord & Taylor’s digital business, combined with new leadership and a rightsized store footprint, will evolve the customer experience and is expected to reduce costs and improve the overall performance of this business,” says Biango.

HBC’s CEO, Helena Foulkes, who formerly was the president of CVS’s pharmacy division, started earlier this year. Last month, the store announced it was joining forces with Walmart to be featured on the mega-retail corporation’s site, Walmart.com. The campaign set up Lord & Taylor’s online flagship store on this website to reach the discount store’s extensive base of internet customers.

Biango emphasizes this illustrates how HBC is thinking differently as the company is balancing its brand’s brick-and-mortar presence with its online channels.

HBC plans on shutting down the Fifth Avenue store in early 2019 and will provide future updates on its closing of specific, additional locations. HBC continues to expect to close on the sale of the Lord & Taylor building to WeWork during the second half of the year. WeWork declined to comment on its plans regarding the Lord & Taylor space.