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August 17, 2009
Hiring will begin this week as Macy's prepares to open new stores in Fresno and Visalia.
The national department-store chain, which operates more than 800 stores across the country, expects to hire about 260 workers for the former Gottschalks' stores at The Shops at River Park in north Fresno and in the Visalia Mall.
To take applications for the River Park site, Macy's will open an employment center Wednesday at its Fresno furniture store on the northwest corner of Shaw and Cedar avenues, across from Fresno State. The job center will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. The phone number is (559) 222-6611.
For the Visalia store, hiring starts Aug. 27 at a jobs center in the former Gottschalks Village East space in the Visalia Mall. That center's hours will also be 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.
About 130 positions are expected to be filled at each store. People can also apply for jobs online at www.macysjobs.com/.
Macy's plans to have both stores open by the end of October.
Deena Cota, a 13-year Gottschalks veteran who managed the company's River Park store, has been hired by Macy's to run the new store. Cota had been an assistant manager at Gottschalks stores in Bakersfield and Visalia before becoming a store manager, first at Gottschalks' Hanford Mall store and, most recently, at River Park.
In Visalia, the manager will be Pam Georgeson, the Macy's store manager in Salinas. She previously worked at Macy's Fashion Fair store in Fresno as an assistant store manager.
Gottschalks, founded in Fresno in 1904, filed for bankruptcy this year and eventually shuttered all 58 of its department stores in six western states with liquidation sales. In a bankruptcy auction in May, Macy's won the right to take over Gottschalks' leases at River Park and in the Visalia Mall.
Macy's operates about 140 Macy's and Bloomingdales stores in California, but its stores in Fashion Fair -- about 250,000 square feet -- and its furniture store on Shaw Avenue are the company's only presence in the central San Joaquin Valley.
The company is paying more than $2 million to take over the two Gottschalks leases, according to bankruptcy court documents.
The Visalia Mall store is the larger of the two, at about 150,000 square feet, and was considered one of Gottschalks' best-performing locations. The Visalia lease expires in 2015.
The River Park store is about 106,000 square feet and was opened in 2005 as a symbol of a new direction Gottschalks hoped to take with its stores. That lease continues through 2025.
Another clothing retailer, Forever 21, is taking over 10 former Gottschalks stores, including Fashion Fair and Hanford. The Hanford location opened last month, and the Los Angeles-based retailer plans on moving from its current space at Fashion Fair into the larger Gottschalks vacancy next year.
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