CINCINNATI, Ohio — Macy’s announced Tuesday that it plans on closing 125 of its stores in lower tier malls and its corporate headquarters in downtown Cincinnati in the next three years.
The company also plans on cutting about 2,000 corporate and support positions as it works to stabilize its profitability and position itself for growth.
“We will focus our resources on the healthy parts of our business, directly address the unhealthy parts of the business and explore new revenue streams," CEO Jeffrey Gennette said in a press release Tuesday. "Over the past three years, we have shown we can grow the top-line; however, we have significant work to do to improve the bottom-line. We are confident the strategy we are announcing today will allow us to stabilize margin in 2020 and set the foundation for sustainable, profitable growth.”
It's not yet clear how many of the roughly 500 employees who work at the Cincinnati headquarters will lose their jobs. Employees were told of the closure Tuesday as Macy's prepares for a Feb. 5 meeting in which the company will update analysts on its new strategic plan.
As WCPO reported last month, Macy's has been downsizing its commitment to Cincinnati gradually in the last several years. Its downtown store at Fountain Place closed in 2018. The Northgate Mall store is expected to close by the end of March, eliminating 139 jobs.
Macy's has maintained a dual headquarters in New York City and Cincinnati since 1994, but most of its management talent now resides in New York. In fact, 11 of 14 highest-ranking executives on Macy’s website are New Yorkers, according to their Linked In profiles and public record searches by WCPO. None are based in Cincinnati.
With the restructuring, New York City will become the company’s sole corporate headquarters. The macys.com headquarters will also relocate from San Francisco to New York.
Cincinnati gets a lot of mileage out of its Macy’s headquarters status. It’s one of nine Fortune 500 companies based in the region, a fact that is often touted by economic development professionals as they try to recruit new companies. Macy’s has about 3,600 local employees, including several hundred at 7 West Seventh Street.
Macy’s is an important corporate donor to philanthropic causes, including ArtsWave, United Way, the University of Cincinnati and 39 other organizations that Macy’s lists as “local partners” on its website.
This story was originally published by
Dan Monk
at WCPO.