Macy's has announced the closure of 68 stores and the reorganization of others, part of the approximately 100 closings announced in August 2016 and weak holiday sales. The only store affected in Western New York is Macy's location in Henrietta, outside Rochester.
The company says the restructuring is necessary to come up with new strategies to gain market share and deal with declining traffic in its stores.
Wilmorite, the company that owns Marketplace Mall where the Henrietta Macy's is located, has been in the process of changing the mall over to an outlet concept. Mall Manager Mike Wilmot says Macy's does have a discount brand, but now it looks like that won't be coming here.
“They do have an outlet concept that they were thinking about," he said. "I know when we first announced it, so they were looking into that, but they were also looking into closing 100 stores in 2017 and that was all being based on sales levels."
Another official with Wilmorite, Dennis Wilmot, issued a statement saying that while they can't say what will happen with the Macy's building, the efforts to transform the mall into a super-regional outlet shopping destination will continue. The store will close this year, displacing 77 people who work at that location.
