MainStreet

MainStreet was a department store chain based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The chain was launched in November 1983 by Federated Department Stores (now known as Macy's, Inc.).[1] Throughout the 1980s, the chain expanded to twenty-nine stores in Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. By 1988, MainStreet was sold to the Wisconsin-based chain Kohl's, which converted most MainStreet locations to Kohl's that year.

For other uses, see Main Street (disambiguation).
MainStreet
TypeDepartment store
IndustryRetail
FateConverted or Sold to Kohl's
Founded1983, Chicago, Illinois, USA
Defunct1988
HeadquartersBannockburn, Illinois, USA
Area served
Chicago metropolitan area, Detroit, Michigan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Twin Cities, Minnesota
ProductsClothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, home electronics, small appliances, housewares
ParentFederated Department Stores

History

Federated Department Stores, now known as Macy's, Inc., founded the MainStreet chain in 1983 with seven stores in the Chicago, Illinois area. The store was a middle-market chain focused primarily on softlines, similar to Kohl's and Mervyns. MainStreet stores often featured a "racetrack" layout like a discounter, but checkouts were distributed around the store like a traditional department store. The first locations outside the Chicago area opened around Metro Detroit in 1986.[2]

The MainStreet chain was sold by Campeau Corporation, then-owners of Federated, in order to reduce debts following Campeau's buyout of Federated.[3] Kohl's acquired twenty-six of the twenty-nine MainStreet locations in 1988 for $90 million,[4][5] and converted them to the Kohl's nameplate in March 1989.[6] The only remnant of this store's name and logo still in use is MainStreet Square, a strip mall in Downers Grove, Illinois that originally had a MainStreet store as its anchor before it was converted to a Kohl's, but the strip mall name stayed the same.

References
  1. Federated to add specialty div. and fine-tune non-department stores, Discount Store News, July 9, 1984. Archived September 24, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  2. "Mainstreet to open four stores". The Bryan Times. 23 December 1985. Retrieved 11 August 2010.
  3. Toy story Archived December 8, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, BusinessWeek, December 4, 2000.
  4. Our Milestones Archived December 23, 2006, at the Wayback Machine, Kohl's Corporation, Last accessed January 23, 2007.
  5. "Article: Confirm Kohl's to buy Mainstreet from Federated Stores for $90M". Daily News Record. 1988-11-01. Archived from the original on 2012-11-02. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
  6. Randle, Wilma (1989-02-22). "Kohl's to expand MainStreet". The Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2009-10-01.
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