Macy's says it will close Hicksville store; Commack store to close this summer
The Macy's at Broadway Commons in Hicksville, seen on Wednesday, is among 29 stores the chain will close. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Long Island will lose another Macy’s store this year, as the department store chain continues to struggle and is reporting a decline in holiday sales.
The Macy’s at 100 Broadway Mall, in Hicksville’s Broadway Commons, will be among 29 stores — 28 Macy’s and one Bloomingdale’s — that will close “in the coming weeks,” Bridget Betances, a spokeswoman for Cincinnati-based Macy’s Inc., said Wednesday.
Betances did not specify why the Hicksville store was closing but said the company “regularly reviews its store portfolio.”
“The decision to close a store is always a difficult one, but Macy’s is proud to have served the Hicksville community … and we look forward to continuing to do so at nearby Macy’s stores, including Macy’s Roosevelt Field, Macy’s Walt Whitman Mall, Macy’s Massapequa and Macy’s Manhasset as well as online at macys.com,” she said.
The Macy’s in Commack, whose impending closing already has been reported by Newsday, also is listed among the 29 stores set to shutter.
In September, Newsday reported that the landlord for the Commack Shopping Center, Commack Shopping Center Associates, planned to demolish the Macy’s and replace it with a BJ’s Wholesale Club, pending approval from Smithtown. The Commack store is an approximately 210,000-square-foot space located at 2 Veterans Memorial Hwy.
Betances said Wednesday that the Macy’s in Commack will close this summer because the lease is being terminated by the landlord. A clearance sale at that store will begin in May and will run for seven to eight weeks, she said.
At the Hicksville store, a clearance sale will begin this month and run for eight to 12 weeks, she said.
About 96 employees work at the Macy’s in Hicksville and 107 work in Commack, Betances said.
“Regular, nonseasonal colleagues who we are unable to place at nearby Macy’s stores will be eligible for severance, including outplacement resources,” she said.
After the stores close in Hicksville and Commack, there will be eight full-line Macy’s stores left on Long Island.
The 200,000-square-foot, three-story Macy’s in Hicksville is an anchor in Broadway Commons, a 1.1 million-square-foot shopping center whose other large tenants include IKEA, Target and Showcase Cinemas.
While Macy’s has some valuable stores in the New York City area and other major cities, it has too many legacy locations in suburban malls that are underperforming, said Ivan P. Feinseth, a partner at Tigress Financial Partners, a Manhattan-based investment banking and brokerage firm.
There were 636 Macy’s stores at the end of the third quarter, compared to 737 in 2015.
On Wednesday, Macy’s Inc. reported that its sales in November and December at stores open at least one year fell 0.6 percent compared to the same period a year earlier.
“Unlike last year, Macy’s did not deliver sales growth. While not particularly surprising, this remains disappointing and underlines the various ongoing challenges faced by the iconic department store,” Neil Saunders, managing director of retail at Manhattan-based market research firm GlobalData, wrote Wednesday.
But there were some bright spots during the holiday period, such as Macy’s strong performance in e-commerce and at the stores where Macy’s has focused on investment, called the Growth 150, Saunders wrote.
“Together, these two parts of the business saved Christmas for Macy’s,” he wrote.
History of Macy’s at Broadway Commons
The Macy’s in Hicksville is in a space that was first occupied by a Gertz department store. The Gertz opened in 1956 in what was then a new, open-air shopping center called Mid-Island Shopping Plaza, which is now called Broadway Commons.
In 1983, after being merged by their parent company, Allied Stores Corp., Gertz’s eight full-service department stores on Long Island and one small store in East Hampton were renamed Stern’s, a seven-store chain that was based in Paramus, New Jersey.
In 2001, Federated Department Stores of Cincinnati, which by then owned both the Stern’s and Macy’s chains, shut down the 134-year-old Stern’s, which had 24 stores in New York and New Jersey, to put more resources into the larger and more profitable Macy’s chain.
Six Stern’s stores on Long Island and in Queens, including the one in Hicksville and the one in Commack Shopping Center, were converted to the Macy’s name.
Federated Department Stores is now called Macy’s Inc.
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.
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