PLANO, TX-J.C. Penney Co. Inc., armed with a 20-store plan for 2005, will be opening a dozen freestanding units after a year of test driving the concept. The rest of the package will be mall locations with smaller formats.
The corporate team will open its first wave of stores in March and then take a break until summer on ribbon-cuttings. A trio of mall stores will start this year's expansion play, all slightly smaller versions from the traditional box. Centralized operations have made it possible to glean "more selling space in the box," a corporate spokesman for the Plano, TX-based retailer tells GlobeSt.com, citing the elimination of back-office functions from most locations.
The March ribbon-cuttings will be held in El Centro, CA and Montgomery, AL, where 78,000-sf and 94,000-sf versions, respectively, will open as replacement product for larger, older stores at nearby malls. Also coming next month is a new market, Chesapeake, VA, where lights go on in a 100,000-sf store.
The spokesman says the company's not pinpointed a magic number for mall versus freestanding locations. "The key is to get the right location, the best location out there," he says, "to build a store that's going to be profitable." Freestanding units range from 90,000 sf to 95,000 sf whereas the traditional mall location hovers 150,000 sf.
The balance of the 2005 lineup is being kept under wraps for now. The chain consists of 1,017 department stores in the US and 62 Renner department stores in Brazil.
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