Macy’s chief says Chicago sales success will lead to more jobs

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Updated: August 3, 2011 10:06PM

Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren said Wednesday that the retailer will be among companies adding jobs in Chicago because local stores are performing so well.

“We are still growing on State Street and throughout the Chicago area,” he said during a keynote speech to the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce’s 107th annual meeting at the Hilton Chicago. “The Chicago-area stores consistently achieve among the top results in the country among major cities, and for the first four months of this year, we are breaking records.”

His remarks came after Mayor Rahm Emanuel reminded the 1,300 attendees that GE Capital, Motorola Solutions and United Airlines have committed to bring a total of 2,700 jobs to Chicago in the next 18 months.

After the chamber meeting, Lundgren said sales at Macy’s on State Street remain strong, those at Water Tower Place are “on fire” after a $10 million renovation, and that upgrades at Oak Brook and other suburban stores have paid off, too. The strong year-over-year sales mean more hiring, he said.

Macy’s doesn’t break out store-by-store sales, but it beat its department-store peers by reporting same-store sales growth nationwide of 5.4 percent for the first quarter of 2011. Same-store sales jumped 4.6 percent last year, Macy’s best annual increase in at least 15 years and one of the best performances among large retailers.

Macy’s, the owner of its namesake stores and Bloomingdale’s, employs 7,200 in the Chicago region, including 130 executives who work out of the retailer’s district office at the flagship store at 111 N. State St.

Before Lundgren’s speech, models strutted along a runway wearing fashions designed by 21 of 24 emerging fashion designers who have been part of Macy’s four-year-old fashion incubator.

The retailer’s “My Macy’s” initiative, aimed at stocking each store with differing products based on shoppers’ preferences, has revealed big sales of Frango mints and size 11 women’s shoes at the State Street store, and a doubling of the handbag department at Water Tower, for example. Macy’s continues to work with Chicago-based Cupid Candies to make some of the one-pound boxes of Frango mint chocolates.

Lundgren conceded that “it wasn’t all a bed of roses” nearly five years ago after Macy’s — then Federated Department Stores — renamed the Marshall Field & Co. chain. He joked that he felt like “a fire hydrant at a dog show” when he met with local newspaper editorial boards to tell them of his decision.

“I had it coming. It was my decision,” he said. Yet refashioning Macy’s into a national brand, rather than maintaining regional brands, enabled the retailer to weather the recession better than its peers.

Macy’s also is emphasizing proprietary brands and digital and social media, as evidenced by its $120 million digital-media spending — of a $1 billion marketing outlay — in each of the past two years, and a Facebook-only “Million-Dollar Makeover” campaign. Macy’s doubled its Facebook “fans,” to 1.8 million, after the makeover event, Lundgren said.

The chamber also paid tribute and gave a standing ovation in memory of the late James Tyree, who was chairman of Mesirow Financial and leader of the investor group that led the parent company of the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers in the region out of bankruptcy.