In 1982, Marshall Field & Co. ceased to be a public company, being acquired by B.A.T. British-American Tobacco. As part of BATUS Retail Group, the American retailing arm of B.A.T., Field's and its Frederick & Nelson, Ivey's and The Crescent department stores and John Brueners home furnishings stores joined Gimbels, Saks Fifth Avenue and Kohl's. Field's continued to expand under BATUS, adding stores at Houston's Town & Country Mall in 1983, and at North Star Mall in San Antonio in 1986.
Only four years after buying Marshall Field's, BATUS scaled back its retail operations in 1986, selling Field's former subsidiaries Frederick & Nelson and The Crescent to a local investor group. Frederick & Nelson quickly deteriorated, and it became defunct in 1992. Its 1914 building, the one acquired by Field's in 1929 was eventually bought by Nordstrom and renovated and reopened as a replacement for their own Seattle parent store in 1998.
Gimbels was wound down at this time, and Field's used this as an opportunity to add five former Gimbels locations in Wisconsin: downtown Milwaukee, Northridge Mall and Southridge Mall in suburban Milwaukee, Hilldale Shopping Center in Madison and in downtown Appleton. The former Gimbels Northridge and Southridge locations were retained only 3 years before being sold to H.C. Prange Co. of Sheyboygan after poor performance in 1989.
The 1929 Evanston and Oak Park stores were closed as well in 1986, deemed out of date and too costly to operate. But, in 1987, a major restoration and renovation of the State Street flagship commenced.
BATUS initially retained Saks Fifth Avenue, Marshall Field's and Ivey's, but subsequently sold all its remaining U.S. retail assets in 1990 with Saks being acquired by Bahrain-based Investcorp, Ivey's being sold to Dillard's and Marshall Field's being sold to Dayton Hudson Corporation (now Target Corporation).
Dayton Hudson/Target and May
As part of Dayton Hudson, later renamed Target Corporation, Marshall Field's retained its nameplate, but its buying operations and Chicago headquarters merged with the Dayton's stores and the Hudson's stores under the Dayton Hudson Department Store Company, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Under the leadership of president Dan Skoda, Dayton Hudson completed the magnificent $115 million restoration of the State Street store, including the creation of the south atrium and Daniel Burnham-designed "lost fountain" originally designed but never implemented back in 1902-1907. A strategy was set in motion to enhance Marshall Field's image by bringing in more designer brands, in-store specialty boutiques and a focus on quality, service and value. Resulting sales increases were encouraging, and the customer response showed that foundation for Marshall Field's future was being built. Additional store openings included one at Columbus City Center in Columbus, Ohio in 1989, a mall built on the site of the once Field's-owned The Union Co./Halle's. Also, in 1991, the former Gimbels in downtown Appleton was closed when new sister-division Dayton's opened a mall-based store there.
A new store at Northbrook Court in Northbrook, Illinois came in 1995 with extensive use of marble and hand-tufted carpeting, the first Chicago area store in 14 years. A similar Hudson's store, later converted to Marshall Field's, was also constructed in 1998-99 at the Rivertown Crossings Mall in suburban Grand Rapids, MI. 1996 saw the building of a new full-line store at The Mall at Tuttle Crossing in suburban Dublin, Ohio as well as two stand-alone furniture galleries near its Oak Brook and Schaumburg stores. The closure of the first "modern" Field's suburban branch at Park Forest Plaza came in 1996.
In 1997, Marshall Field's pulled out of the Texas market selling its four locations at The Galleria and Town & Country Mall in Houston, Galleria Dallas and San Antonio's North Star Mall. The Houston and Dallas stores were sold to Saks Fifth Avenue and the San Antonio location to Macy's. Field's also shuttered the former Gimbels flagship in Milwaukee after negotiations to rehabilitate it collapsed.
Dayton's and Hudson's stores were renamed Marshall Field's in early 2001, an event that was received with mixed emotion in Dayton's hometown of Minneapolis and Hudson's hometown of Detroit, expanding the Field's name to 64 stores in eight states. In 2003 Marshall Field's sold its two Columbus, Ohio, locations to May Department Stores Company, which reopened them as Kaufmann's.
On July 30, 2004, the Marshall Field division (along with property from nine shuttered Minneapolis-area locations from Mervyn's, another unit of Target Corporation) was sold to the May Department Stores Company. The then 62 Marshall Field's store division was valued for sale at US$3.25 billion.
Prior to its acquisition by May Department Stores Co., Marshall Field's had about 25,000 employees in 62 stores. It operated in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. May Company closed a former Dayton's store at Kirkwood Mall in Bismarck, North Dakota and a Hudson's store at Glenbrook Square in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Federated
Federated Department Stores acquired May Department Stores on August 30, 2005, consolidating the last two major traditional department store holding companies. Just three weeks later, Federated announced that all Marshall Field's stores would convert to the Macy's nameplate in fall 2006, a decision said to be consistent with previously announced estimates to realize approximately $175 million in cost synergies in 2006 and $450 million in annual cost synergies in 2007 and beyond.
On February 1, 2006, the Marshall Field's corporate division was renamed the Macy's North Division of Federated Department Stores. On September 9, 2006, all its operating stores were converted to Macy's.
The Former Dolce & Gabbana Collection Space.
The re-branding decision was greeted with largely negative reactions, particularly in Field's hometown of Chicago. Newspaper articles and editorials reported concerns of many customers that particular traditions, services, and products unique to a store or region would be lost. More than 59,000 signed an online petition[10] to retain the Marshall Field name. Following the 2005 Christmas shopping season, WLS-TV in Chicago reported particularly strong sales at the chain's State Street flagship, as people wanted to spend one last Christmas at the Chicago institution.
Marshall Field's continued to be a purveyor of Marshall Field's brand name apparel, Field's Marketplace foods and Frango confections. With landmark status, the State Street flagship store is known for its opulent architecture, bronze plaque signage and its trademark clocks. The merger remains controversial among Chicagoans. Many are merely nostalgic while others note that Macy's focus on house-brand merchandise will eliminate the more upscale brands carried by Marshall Field's. In clothing, Armani, Prada, Jimmy Choo, and Dolce & Gabbana are among the vendors that supplied Marshall Field's, but do not supply Macy's. In some departments the conversion will upgrade the inventory of suppliers ?- housewares says that they will carry all brands formerly carried and stock many brands such as All-Clad more extensively, as well as Macy's house-brand merchandise. Also, these decisions are made on a department by department basis. Although Prada's clothing will no longer be carried, Prada recently released a fragrance line at the Chicago Flagship location.
Although the conversion officially occurred on September 9, 2006, it was implemented on a phased basis by early August, as signified by such events as Macy's cars entered in the Bud Billiken Day Parade,[11] and Macy's displays in store windows. The changes instituted by Federated apparently were not well received by former Field's shoppers, as manifested by a drop in sales in the Macy's North division stores.[12] Resistance was even noted in the Twin Cities.[13]
wiki
