Meier & Frank soon to get new name: Macy's

Utahns who are still trying to get used to the name Meier & Frank for what was ZCMI can stop trying to make that mental leap.

They might as well start calling the department stores Macy's, instead.

Macy's will replace locally familiar names including Meier & Frank in Utah, Filene's in New England and Famous-Barr in the Midwest in some 330 stores across the nation under post-merger plans announced Thursday by Federated Department Stores Inc.

Federated also plans to sell 68 stores, including 27 current Macy's, next year because they overlap in markets with the company Federated is buying, May Department Stores Co. The stores employ 13,500 people, but Federated spokesman Jim Sluzewski said he expected "very few if any" layoffs and that most workers would be offered other jobs.

Federated has pledged not to cut any jobs before March 1.

Ten May nameplates will be eliminated in fall 2006, Federated said, as the Cincinnati-based company laid out what it has in store after its takeover of rival May becomes final.

Federated says May's Lord & Taylor name, now on 58 stores, will stay, and that it's studying the Marshall Field's name. A Chicago landmark, there are 60 Marshall Field's stores.

It isn't known exactly when the transition will affect Utah's eight Meier & Frank stores (along with one David's Bridal), according to May Department Stores spokeswoman Sharon Bateman.

"All Federated has said is that the conversion for the May Co. stores will begin sometime in the fall of 2006," Bateman said. "That's the best information I have."

Federated also did not disclose its strategy for rebranding its new stores — how it will introduce Utahns to the Macy's concept, market its products, create its own footprint.

And it isn't known whether the new owners will try to initiate discussions about the downtown Salt Lake store's operating hours — specifically, whether it will ask to conduct business on Sundays.

At present, the ZCMI Center mall is closed on Sundays. Dale Bills, spokesman for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns the mall in which the downtown store is located, said Thursday that "the ZCMI Center has always been closed on Sundays since its construction. Meier & Frank accepted that condition for their downtown location when they acquired the ZCMI stores (in 1999).