Sunday, September 23, 2007

Macy's (former Hecht's), West Wendover Avenue, Greensboro, North Carolina. Main entrances. Photographed 9/22/07.

Previously on LiveMalls
Macy's (former Hecht's), West Wendover Avenue

11 comments:

  1. Those are some sexy, modern entrances. Perhaps Macy's could have installed some artwork or something on the facade between them.

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  2. It's funny that you'd describe the entrances that way. This was originally a Hecht's, and Hecht's was the antithesis of a "sexy" retailer. They are cool, though.

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  3. Is the car in the front of the picture parked in front of the entrance of the store?

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  4. Yeah, pretty much. There's a small sidewalk along the front of the building, and parking all around the perimeter.

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  5. So what's the story on this store? I looked at some satellite photos and noticed it seems to be across the street from the rest of a shopping center (if I were looking at the correct store, though those entrances are hard to miss!).

    I guess my two questions are:

    1. Is this store too close to Friendly Center for comfort? Are both of the stores co-existing?

    2. Wait a sec...isn't Four Seasons pretty close by too? But they don't appear to have a Macy's...is this why we have this random Hecht's/Macy's up the road? Was Hecht's into putting up off-mall stores?

    Thanks as always, Steven!

    Matt

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  6. This store is essentially the replacement location for the Thalhimers that was at Four Seasons Town Centre. May Company closed the (really tiny) Four Seasons store in 1992, with plans to build a larger Hecht’s store at the mall. I think the original plan included closing the Friendly Center Hecht’s as well, but that didn’t happen.

    Anyway, by 1995, it appears that the deal to reopen Hecht’s at Four Seasons was dead, and sales at Friendly Center were strong enough to necessitate an expansion, which was completed by 1997. Hecht’s still wanted a Southside store in Greensboro, however.

    Somewhere around 2000, planning for a new 140,000 square foot store for Hecht’s in Greensboro started again, but this time on a freestanding site on Hornaday Road, just of I-40 and the Wendover Avenue shopping corridor which rose from relative obscurity to dominance in the ’90s.

    The store site is separated from the Wendover Place shopping center by Hornaday Road, and the store itself was part of a plan by May Company to build smaller, more contemporary stores in off-mall locations. At least a couple dozen May stores were built in this ‘lifestyle’ format from 2002 to 2005, including the former Macy’s/Hecht’s at Mayfaire in Wilmington, which is now a Belk store.

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  7. Crap, I forgot to answer your questions ;-)

    1. AFAIK, the Friendly Center Macy’s has not been adversely affected by Macy’s at Wendover. There was some cannibalization of sales at first, but Macy’s Friendly Center rebounded in recent years, and now stocks slightly more upscale merchandise than its smaller sibling. The newer location pulls heavily from shoppers on the south side of town and High Point, and also people who don’t like the mall scene.

    2. Four Seasons is about three miles from this store, and as you’ve noticed, has no Macy’s. It really doesn’t need one. It has the largest Dillard’s and JCPenney stores in the Triad by far, and the Belk is one of the company’s largest as well.

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  8. So, does this Macy's have one or two floors?

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  9. I guess I should have figured, but you can't count on the proponents of suburban sprawl to think logically.

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  10. This store is fairly logical, to be sure, though it's not a favorite of mine.

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