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Gottschalks consolidates at East Hills Mall

By JOHN COX, Californian staff writer
e-mail: jcox@bakersfield.com | Tuesday, May 27 2008 5:06 PM

Last Updated: Wednesday, May 28 2008 7:55 AM

Jean Miller worried that her favorite store was being shut down Tuesday morning.

Gone were the cosmetics, the shoes and the various apparel departments inside the Gottschalks at East Hills Mall. In their place: racks of clothing marked “75% off.”

Soon a store employee set her straight. “She said, ‘Oh, we moved over to the other end’” of the mall, the Bakersfield retiree said.

Sure enough, Gottschalks Inc. has rearranged its presence at East Hills Mall in a way the chain hopes will better reflect the preferences of shoppers in Bakersfield, one of the Fresno-based retailer’s best markets.

Preparing to shed space the chain inherited by purchasing Harris’ Department Stores in 1998, Gottschalks recently consolidated its two long-standing stores in East Hills. It turned one of them into a clearance store, renovated the other one, opened a small furniture store and moved its Southern California regional headquarters to the mall.

“Based upon the feedback from our customers, they basically told us they prefer to shop all at one location,” Michael Legro, Gottschalks’ regional vice president and director of stores, said Tuesday. A grand reopening is set for Thursday, he added.

Some neighboring merchants hope the moves will lead to more changes at the mall, where they said years of discussion about pending renovations and other moves has so far failed to bring about meaningful change.

“It’s a good thing for (Gottschalks),” said Howard Setser, owner of Nana’s Country Cupboard, located next to the newly renovated Gottschalks at the mall’s eastern end. “But whether it’s going to help anyone else or not, I don’t know.”

Setser and others said they are anxious to hear what will move into the Gottschalks space that now sells only clearance items.

“It’s very hard to say what’s going to happen,” said Sandi Truman, owner of Juice/Java and More, located near the center of the mall by what is now the Gottschalks discount store.

Mall management officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Gottschalks spent millions of dollars remodeling, putting in new flooring and otherwise preparing the 80,000-square-foot space it will now inhabit permanently at the mall’s east end, Legro said.

“It’s more of an open feeling,” he said. “It’s less crowded. The aisles are bigger to make it easier for the customer to shop.”

“It’s very pretty,” said shopper Janet Tagart, a housewife from the Lake Isabella area who said she liked the changes she saw Tuesday at the renovated Gottschalks.

New lines of merchandise were also added, including high-end purses, shoes and women’s sportswear, he said. The changes give the store “more depth” than the selection of goods available at Gottschalks’ store in Valley Plaza, Legro said.

The 80,000-square-foot former Harris store that now sells only clearance items is scheduled to close at the end of August.

No jobs were lost in the transition, Legro said. In fact, he said, the new permanent Gottschalks store will serve as headquarters to half a dozen employees who help manage the roughly 20-store region extending from the Central Coast through Southern California.

Bakersfield has become among the chain’s top four markets, Legro said. He said the reason may have to do with its being, like the chain’s Fresno base, located in Central California and reflects nonurban tastes.

“(Bakersfield) is middle America, and that’s what we’re really all about,” Legro said.

Gottschalks is a 104-year-old, publicly traded company with about 60 stores across the Western United States. Its fortunes have risen and fallen in recent years, and the company’s shares now trade near the low end of their 52-week range, closing Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange at $2.13.