Burlington taking over former Macy's Backstage space in Melville

By this fall, Burlington will have nearly doubled its number of stores on Long Island over a two-year period, but the off-price retailer isn’t stopping there.

The department-store chain has signed a lease to open a store in the former Macy’s Backstage space in the Melville Mall shopping center in Huntington Station, said Clifford N. Simon, president of CNS Real Estate, the Westchester County-based firm that represents Burlington in New York State, Connecticut and Northern and Central New Jersey.

Burlington will move into a 32,314-square-foot unit at 180 Walt Whitman Rd., which is a stretch of Route 110. The store will be about 3 miles away from an existing Burlington that opened in 2023 in the Huntington Commons shopping center on New York Avenue, which is also a stretch of Route 110.

The Burlington, New Jersey-based retailer declined to comment, so it is unclear when the Huntington Station store will open.

Also, Melville Mall’s landlord, Federal Realty Investment Trust in North Bethesda, Maryland, declined to comment on Burlington.

The Macy's Backstage, an off-price store that opened in the shopping center in 2015, closed March 16.

On Jan. 9, long-struggling Macy's announced a list of 66 closing stores in 23 states, including the Macy’s at Sunrise Mall and two Macy's Backstage stores in Melville Mall and New Hyde Park.

Macy's said most of the closings would occur in the first quarter of this year.

The space in Melville Mall that Burlington is taking over is bordered on the left by another off-price store, Marshalls.

To the right of Burlington’s space is a now-vacant unit formerly occupied by outdoors store Public Lands, which was next door to a sister retailer, Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Dick’s will become a larger store, increasing to nearly 97,000 square feet, by absorbing the former Public Lands space, which is 50,174 square feet, according to a Federal Realty representative.

Among the other tenants in the shopping center are Italian specialty grocer Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace, Melville Wine, Gregory’s Coffee, Club Pilates and Tex-Mex eatery Lucharitos.

'Changing landscape'

Burlington is expanding quickly nationwide and on Long Island.

Increasingly opening new stores in smaller spaces to improve efficiency and boosting sales at stores open at least one year are part of the retailer's expansion strategy.

Much of the store growth is being driven by inflation-weary customers searching for deals.

On Long Island, Burlington has 15 stores, six of which have opened since November 2023. The retailer is opening two more Long Island stores this year — in Islandia in July and Bay Shore in the fall.

Nationwide, as of May 3, the end of its fiscal first quarter, Burlington had 1,115 stores, which was 249 more than it had three years earlier.

Burlington plans to have opened 500 net new stores from 2024 to 2028, with the long-term goal of eventually having 2,000 stores.

In Burlington’s fiscal first quarter, total sales grew by 6%, compared with the same period last year, but sales at stores open at least one year were flat.

There are two drivers of uncertainty for the retailer, including tariffs creating instability in sourcing merchandise, Burlington CEO Michael O’Sullivan told analysts during a company earnings call in May.

Also, the state of the consumer is of concern as shoppers’ spending has slowed down, he said.

"The changing landscape of tariffs creates risks and opportunities for our business. We have many advantages that traditional retailers do not have. We can move more rapidly and more flexibly. The next several months could be challenging, but if we navigate this well, then we expect to come out ahead," he said in a statement last month.

In the fiscal first quarter, Burlington’s net income was $101 million, up 28% from the $79 million in the same period a year earlier.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.