Venture to open Ky. unit; boosts store count to 75 - discount store chain

Discount Store News, Sept 25, 1989

Venture to Open Ky. Unit; Boosts Store Count to 75

O'FALLON, Mo. -- Venture will enter a new market, Kentucky, when it opens a store in Paducah early next month.

That same day, Oct. 9, Venture will open a new unit in the Chicago suburb of Streamwood, Ill. The two new stores are the only new units Venture will open in 1989, pushing store count to 75.

Grand openings will follow on Oct. 15.

The Paducah store cost $6.1 million, Venture disclosed, and will employ about 250 people, including 30 percent fulltime and 40 percent permanent part-time employees. The remaining 30 percent will be seasonal extras.

Also in the Chicago market, Venture is replacing its Arlington Heights store with a slightly larger unit. Both new stores will be 85,000 square feet in size, one of the larger Venture prototypes.

The manager of the Paducah store is Terry Meece, who joined Venture in June 1988 as co-manager of operations at the chain's Fairview Heights, Ill., store.

A veteran of 15 years in retailing, Meece also served a stint with JCPenney.

For now, Venture plans no further Kentucky units, a spokeswoman said. Venture hasn't disclosed expansion plans for 1990.

In 1988, Venture had opened four stores and closed one, for a net increase of three to 73. The new units were in Chicago, St. Louis and Mishawaka and South Bend, Ind.

In June, its parent, May Department Stores Co., put both Venture and its sister chain, Caldor, on the auction block. Accordingly, May is treating both chains as discontinued operations for financial reporting purposes.

May said it wants to maximize return on investment by selling its remaining discount operations and investing the proceeds in more profitable department stores.

In July 1988, May sold Loehmann's, its 170-store, off-price apparel chain, for $170 million, as the initial step toward getting out of discounting.

At presstime, May said nothing about potential buyers for Venture and Caldor.

May also kept Caldor on a short expansion leash this year, allocating capital for just one new store, which opened in Marlboro, N.J., last spring.

The new Kentucky store brings to eight the number of states in which Venture operates. However, stores are heavily concentrated in just two states--Illinois, 42 units and Missouri, 18 units. Kansas has six Venture stores, Oklahoma, four and Indiana, two. Venture has single units in Arkansas and Iowa, as well as Kentucky, as of next month.

Venture's sales last year rose 7.9 percent to $1.28 billion from $1.19 billion in 1987. Operating income rose 16 percent to $81 million last year from $70 million in 1987.

Return on sales increased to 6.4 percent from 5.9 percent.

PHOTO : Rendering of Venture's soon-to-be-opened Paducah, Ky., store, one of only two units the

PHOTO : chain will open this year.