Caldor beefs up its N.Y. presence - discount chain opens stores in Ledgewood, New Jersey and on Long Island

Discount Store News, August 6, 1990

Caldor Beefs Up Its N.Y. Presence

NEW YORK -- Two steps forward, one step back, and a leap toward 1991.

That was the score for Caldor last month as it opened in Shirley, on New York's Long Island, and in Ledgewood, N.J., its first stores since Odessey Partners bought out the chain last fall from the May Department Stores Co.

In the same week, Caldor closed without notice its Monmouth Mall store in Eatontown, N.J., and broke ground on Staten Island on its first store within the five boroughs of New York. Net store count stands at 120.

The chain's 1990 expansion will be completed this October when it opens three more units, all in New York state, for a year-end total of 123.

Of the three, two are in the Long Island villages of Woodmere and Garden City, while the third is a former TSS store in Queens, another borough of New York.

For 1991, Staten Island will be one of five planned store openings. Locations of the other four are undisclosed.

Staten Island was to have been the first metro New York store, said Alan Kuller, vice president for real estate.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremonies, Kuller said a four-year regulatory grind to gain site approval, including getting approval because of surrounding wetlands, delayed construction. So the Queens unit will become the first Caldor within metro New York limits.

Caldor first began looking for a Staten Island site in 1981 and succeeded in 1986, he said, indicating a 10-year stretch for getting a store open.

Illustrating the real estate problems on Staten Island, only seven miles wide and 10 miles long, the West Shore Plaza mall that will feature Caldor as an anchor is located in previously undeveloped land near three refuse transfer stations and two miles from the Fresh Kills landfill, largest on the East Coast.

But the store site lies just two miles from the Staten Island Mall, the island's only existing mall. Kuller emphasized that 150,000 New Yorkers live within a three-mile radius.

Caldor will join two long-existing K mart units as full-line discounters on Staten Island. Masters, which would have been a fourth, gave up on full-line discounting at its Staten Island store six months ago, leasing two thirds of the 132,000-square-foot unit for a Pergament home center and reverting to apparel only in the other third that it operates.

The West Shore Plaza also will feature a Masters Family Fashion Center, as well as a Dress Barn off-price apparel store.

Staten Island discount store shoppers are mobile, said a chamber of commerce spokesman, patronizing two Century 21 stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as a Bradlees in Woodbridge, N.J., a $3 bridge toll away from Staten Island. Caldor also operates a Woodbridge unit.

The new Staten Island store will run 83,000 square feet, or less than the desired minimum of 90,000 square feet, Kuller said. But that's all the 260,000-square-foot mall could offer.

Only One to Close

The Eatontown store is the only one Caldor is closing this year, Kuller said. Problems with an odd, two-level layout, with the lower level a basement, rather than opening onto the mall, made it difficult to operate, he said.

Initially, the Eatontown Caldor was a Montgomery Ward and then an Alexander's.

Paul Carlucci, Caldor senior vice president for marketing, said that annual sales of about $10 million for the Eatontown store resulted in substantial losses over a number of years. Sales were well below the average of 21 other New Jersey Caldors, he said.

As part of its announcement of the store closing, Caldor mailed to Eatontown area residents a coupon offering 10 percent off on all merchandise at its nearby Homdel, Englishtown and Brick Town stores. Delete from here Delete from here