Macy’s flagship to undergo $400M renovation

The Macy’s in Herald Square is getting a four-year, $400 million renovation, the company announced this morning.

The renovation will begin in the early spring and continue through the fall of 2015, and all the while, the store will remain open. The project includes adding 100,000 square feet of shopping space — bringing the total selling footprint to 1.2 million square feet — by re-purposing stock and office rooms and extending the mezzanine. The entire structure at 154 West 34th Street is about 2.2 million square feet.

Other notable features of the renovation include the creation of the largest women’s shoe department in the world, a new restaurant on the sixth floor and a pub on the lower level that will remain open beyond store hours. The project also calls for the restoration of the store’s exterior, its “great hall,” and all but one of the location’s 43 wooden escalators.

Herald Square “is our company’s most productive store, and experience shows that improvements in this location consistently result in higher customer traffic and sales volume,” said Macy’s Chairman, President and CEO Terry Lundgren in a statement. “Our upcoming top-to-bottom remodel represents an investment in the future growth of our business as New York City continues to evolve as a world capital and shopping destination.”

The project will create about 1,600 construction-related jobs, and by the end of 2015 Macy’s will add about 800 new positions to the existing 4.600-person workforce. — Adam Fusfeld