Ames

[storehistoryguy]

Originally posted by d_fife
this Ames was in Tilton nh. it was 32,000 square feet and opened in 1981.

The same one as an Ames. What was that closed down supermarket originally? Just a wild guess but a Grand Union?

[Caldor1999]

Originally posted by storehistoryguy

Originally posted by d_fife
this Ames was in Tilton nh. it was 32,000 square feet and opened in 1981.

The same one as an Ames. What was that closed down supermarket originally? Just a wild guess but a Grand Union?

its A&P

[store215]

Ames store from 1998:

[store215]

[store215]

1st ames store:
Edit: I've been told this is actually the  Portland St store in St Johnsbury VT

[store215]

[store215]

Article to match

Title: THE WAY IT WAS ,  By: Stankevich, Debby Garbato, Discount Merchandiser, 00123579, Mar1998, Vol. 38, Issue 3
Database: MasterFILE Premier

Ames 40th Anniversary 1958-1998
THE WAY IT WAS


Contents
1-800-AMES
COUNTING THE BEANS
LET THEM DO IT
What's Changed: Retail sales by channel, 1960
Some Things Don't Change (Much)

As Ames celebrates its 40th anniversary, former chairman and founder Milton Gilman talks about how Ames evolved and why it survived the overstored 1990s.

Milton Gilman can tick off the names of 1960s Northeastern discount chains and their executives with the speed and accuracy of a play-by-play sports announcer. But like some of the greatest names in sports, the majority of these retailers played their last game more than just a few seasons ago.

Rocky Hill, CT-based Ames Department Stores is one of the few that continues to come to bat.

Gilman, the chain's former chairman/chief executive officer and the only surviving founder of the 40-year-old discount chain, believes the Northeastern retailer's prosperity stems from a lot more than the luck of an entrepreneurial family that scraped together its pennies to open a store in rural Southbridge, MA. Rather, he says Ames' survival stems from hard work and more than a little intuition.

"We were hungry enough to be successful," says Gilman, a former fabric wholesaler who, at 79, still actively follows Ames' stock performance when not attending opera or computer classes. "Hard work was the number one thing. It was a 24-hour-a-day job, and common sense was an awful lot of it. Today, they have machinery and it's not the same thing. We didn't have SKUs. for example. So if we brought in ladies' skirts, we'd bring in a few dozen at a time and re-order as they sold."

The idea behind opening a discount store in the bare bones space that once housed the Ames Worsted Textile Factory was to take the low margin concept that retailers like Kings had made successful in urban areas and bring it to rural America. After mortgaging their family's farm, the Gilmans opened their doors for the first time on March 13, 1958.

"A lot of people have gone down the tubes since then, but 1958 was the infancy of self-serve stores," notes Gilman, who retired from Ames in 1981. "While Kings, Zayre and Arlans were already in business, we wanted to see if we could bring something to small communities that was needed, which was a self-service store with limited mark-ups.

"Back then, markups at chain stores like Sears, JCPenney and Montgomery Ward were about 35, and department stores like Macy's, Gimbels and Saks were a little higher," he adds. "You did have variety stores such as Kresge, Woolworth and Neisner. There were loads of them. But their merchandise only went up to a particular point. Then, the discounter came in and went for a 20 to 30 percent markup, making available to the customer whatever merchandise he could at much less."
1-800-AMES

The area in which Gilman and his two brothers, Irving and Herb, worked hardest--and a factor which Milton Gilman believes significantly differentiated Ames from some other discounters of the day--was the level of communication that developed between the corporate office and stores. This was arduous task in an age where airline deregulation, advanced computer technology and fax machines were further off than the lunar landing.

"We had 800 lines and managers telephoned into the main office twice a day," says Gilman. "Every afternoon at four or five they had to call and give me a register reading, which I would compare with the one from the year before. The next morning, they had to give me finals from the day before.

"At the same time the manager called this in, he would tell what merchandise was needed," he adds. "This all told me what was happening and allowed us to micromarket. We did this without computers. This is one of the reasons for our success that you didn't get in some of the guys that went out of business. I still have the records that were phoned up to me." As the chain grew, field managers would handle many store calls.

The image Gilman paints of his early store managers was also somewhat avant-garde for the day. While store managers were paid a bit higher than their peers at other chains, the Gilmans' hands-on involvement with every store eliminated the problem of stores operating in a vacuum, with managers being "untouchable" people who could not always be relied on to record and relay accurate information. This was sometimes a problem in the 1960s and 1970s.

"We tried to recruit people or steal them," says Gilman. "We had to pay a little more, but we had to get them. We never allowed untouchable managers. We had a great guy who ran operations and was very demanding. But if a person got into trouble, he'd be the first one there. A lot of retailers didn't treat people right. They didn't realize they weren't doing this. It wasn't anything we deliberately did--that was just us.

"We also established a warmth in our stores, which you can do in a small area," he adds. "My mother and father were with us in our first store. We were open Saturday night and everyone came in like it was a town meeting. This permeated through our first 25 stores."

Working on a tight budget, Gilman says he would spend whole days driving from store to store. Since Ames' focus was on rural areas which had never been served by a large retail operation, he would log hundreds of miles a day.

"I would travel at night, after the stores closed," he adds. "It wasn't unusual for me to drive up to Buffalo at four, five in the morning, get there at 11 or 12, work a few hours and drive back."
COUNTING THE BEANS

For the Gilmans, frugality may have been the mother of invention. In addition to driving countless miles, they cut corners wherever possible, expanding the chain slowly and keeping a cash reserve.

"Most successful discounters ran tight ships," says Gilman. "The ones that have gone down were loosely managed and not watching their pennies. They were trying to get too big, too soon. They weren't conservative enough. This hurt us badly. Vendors would be careful because some of these companies had hurt them."

All of Ames' early stores, for example, were set up in empty factory buildings, using inexpensive fixtures and tables. To keep the customers' interest, merchandise would constantly be rotated. In a rural community, a consumer would come to the store two or three times a week, says Gilman.

Avoiding debt was a major tenet through Milton Gilman's tenure. But when Ames acquired Zayre shortly thereafter, he believes this philosophy went straight to hell in a hand bucket.

"We pinched every penny, growing steadily but very slowly," says Gilman. "We never allowed ourselves to get into debt. Arlens got into serious trouble, Kings got into trouble. Zayre was fortunate to sell down to Ames and send Ames out the tubes, but that was after I was gone. They were losing $200 million a year and Ames paid $800 million. My brother Herb did not want that, but the board overrode it. We had $100 million in cash when I left.

While the Zayre deal may have been Ames' biggest blunder, the retailer did successfully avoid the mistake that some other Northeastern regional chains did not: It never lost sight of who its customer was, namely, the lower/middle income shopper. This customer, notes Gilman, was nowhere near as gullible as some thought in the 1950s and 1960s when it came to quality, pricing and value.

"I think the consumer was always smart about what they were buying," says Gilman. "I never went for the feeling that the consumer was a dope. A lot of guys went down the drain. But I thought the consumer was smarter than I was."
LET THEM DO IT

Like many discounters of the day--including the defunct Times Square Stores and Modell's Shoppers World--Ames' early philosophy was to lease many departments to outside companies specializing in particular product areas.

Today, this practice is frowned upon in most cases because it is too costly and does not give the host retailer full departmental control. But in the 1960s, it was viewed as a frugal and smart way for a burgeoning discounter to offer a full array of product categories.

"We went through distributors whenever we could," says Gilman. "We needed a lot of help, especially since distributors would come in and do inventory counts. We were paying a very small penalty for using these people, since we didn't have to hire our own people to do the counting. It's different today, since everything in inventory goes on computer."

In the 1960s, buying, in many cases, was also done by outsiders. While the Gilmans did attend some trade shows and later put together a formal, in-house buying group, it was cheaper to use a representative buying office when seeking product in other geographic markets.

"Later on, we depended on buyers, merchandise men and assistant buyers and it became a different world," says Gilman. "But then, we would have the buying office find what we wanted and pay them a fee."

Wal-Mart, which began operation in 1962, also had a strong following among lower/middle income consumers. But while many of its philosophies were similar to those of Ames, Gilman believes Sam Walton's access to more capital allowed the retailer to expand at a much faster rate.

"Sam had spent a few days with us to see what we were doing," says Gilman. "There was very little difference between his stores and ours in the early 1960s. Their stores were really junk houses when they started, offering the cheapest merchandise. I remember being in one in St. Louis and thinking he better do something to clean up those stores. But he had money to build his own stores and own his own real estate, which we didn't."

Gilman also looks closely at Joe Ettore, Ames' current chairman. Gilman believes that Ettore, a 36-year veteran of regional discount retailing, played a major role in restoring Ames to its financial splendor two years ago. A big part of Ettore's success came from sticking to the Gilmans' original concept.

"I've never met Joe, but I think he's a mixture of the old and the new," says Gilman. "I have a lot of respect for him, because he took that company that was floundering very badly and has been showing a nice picture in the last two years.

"I'm glad to see them successful," he adds. "I think Joe set out to run it the way we used to. He is conservative but has a lot of common sense. He's given the customer what they wanted at a good value and he has a good team around him. No one person can do it alone."

Gilman is also enthusiastic about some of the non-discount type retailers that have become major players in the last 10 to 15 years. "Inventories have become much broader," he says. "The inventories Home Depot carries are phenomenal. I just try to count the dollars in that store. Wal-Mart is great too. And I like Target, especially the way they show the goods, and the cleanliness of those goods. Then, you have your specialty stores like Sports Authority."

Most of the successful chains Gilman ticks off, however, did not achieve their growth in the overstored 1980s and 1990s by inviting the whole town to hang out in the aisles on Saturday night. But while Gilman concedes that the past two decades have become ferociously competitive, he still believes there is room for smart entrepreneurs.

"What we did in 1958 is still possible," he says. "If you go back in history, every 25 to 30 years there's been somebody that's come up with something different in retail. I'm glad I don't have to do it anymore. But there are a lot of stores I go into that excite me. I wish I was 25 or 30 years younger."

[C. Fontaine]

Originally posted by MBZ321
1st ames store:

Wow!  That is one of the St. Johnsbury locations I just posted!!!

[d_fife]

Originally posted by storehistoryguy

Originally posted by d_fife
this Ames was in Tilton nh. it was 32,000 square feet and opened in 1981.

The same one as an Ames. What was that closed down supermarket originally? Just a wild guess but a Grand Union?

IT was a&P fods. this ames was too small to carry crafts.

[storehistoryguy]

Originally posted by MBZ321
1st ames store:

I was at that location before along time ago like in the early 90s.

[d_fife]

I went to Augusta maine 3 days ago and saw the Ames still vacant.

[storehistoryguy]

New Ames logo.

[d_fife]

this ames was in waterville as of January 4, 2006. It is said part will become dollar tree.

[d_fife]

Originally posted by storehistoryguy
New Ames logo.

this ames was in East greenbush. I saw it vacant last summer and it had no lettering.

[d_fife]

this ames was in laurel maryland and was 81,550 squrae feet and is now a roomstore and opened 1972

from http://www.kimcorealty.com/propsearch/aerial.asp?PropertyID=0214&Choice=Map&state=MD&scheck=leasing&sk=LEASING&OInterestID=1

[powersbt]

Anyone have the scoop on the Ames in Fort Plain, NY?? Drove over that way, and saw the Large Ames sign near the road still Present, this store was tucked away from view, so I was unable to tell if it was still there.

[d_fife]

here is the Ames in Richmond hwy alexandria virginia that was a zayre. there were 2 in alexandria. it waas like 80000 sf.

from Gale Curcio of www.alexandriagazette.com/ article.asp?archive...

[d_fife]

here is the former Ames in ithaca new york in the pyramid mall

from http://www.pyramidmg.com/portfolio/pyramid_mall.asp

[Caldor1999]

yet still nothing new at my ames since i was last there

[d_fife]

ames is in toledo and was hill's.

from http://www.storetrax.com/stx/showProperty.do

[Zayre88]

Originally posted by d_fife
ames is in toledo and was hill's.

from http://www.storetrax.com/stx/showProperty.do

I'm pretty sure this store used to be a Woolco too.

[d_fife]

Originally posted by Zayre88

Originally posted by d_fife
ames is in toledo and was hill's.

from http://www.storetrax.com/stx/showProperty.do

I'm pretty sure this store used to be a Woolco too.

ya it probabaly was a woolco from the looks of it. it said it was 103,000 square efet and built 1968.

[d_fife]

this ames is in gallien ohio

from http://www.nrdc.com/nrdc/default.aspx?page=Projects&tab=Photos&id=328&photoindex=2

[storehistoryguy]

Originally posted by d_fife
this ames is in gallien ohio

from http://www.nrdc.com/nrdc/default.aspx?page=Projects&tab=Photos&id=328&photoindex=2

Looks to be roral their.

[d_fife]

here is what may happen to former ames in augusta.

http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/news/local/2371645.shtml
 

Friday, January 27, 2006

New tenants coming for Turnpike?


By GARY REMAL
Staff Writer

Copyright ? 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
   E-mail this story to a friend
 
AUGUSTA -- Turnpike Mall is poised to lure two major retailers to the former Ames department store building.

Peter Carbone -- managing partner of Taurus New England Investments LLC, the Boston investment company that owns the Western Avenue shopping center -- said he hopes to make an announcement on the tenants in coming weeks, and to have the stores open for holiday shopping later this year.

He refused to identify the stores now, saying that would jeopardize final negotiations.

"We have been meeting with city officials for a rather large tenant to come in and occupy the former Ames space," Carbone said Thursday. "It's a large, regional retailer everybody will be familiar with. They would actually be splitting the store in two with another retailer that owns them, and completely redoing the space."

Carbone anticipates the popular, large stores would encourage other, smaller retailers to fill in the mall's few vacancies.

Once full, he said, the size of the shopping center would not increase, but a restaurant could be built within the parking area.

Carbone said the 460,000-square-foot Augusta Crossing, planned just across Interstate 95 from Turnpike Mall, may have helped persuade the new retailers to take a look at Augusta.

"I'd say that has something to do with it, because there's evidence that Augusta is underutilized by retailers and there's enough demand coming from in and around the city of Augusta that more retailers can come in," he said. "Retail likes retail. It's no secret retailers like to have others around them, then they try to outperform each other."

Augusta Crossing -- with Lowe's and Target as anchors -- is scheduled to open in fall 2007.

Augusta Code Enforcement Director Richard Dolby confirmed that he has had meetings with Taurus officials. He, too, declined to name the stores.

"They were looking at whether to refurbish that building -- or to take it down to the slab and cut holes in it for new piping then building new," Dolby said. "But I don't think the footprint (of the building) would change."

The new tenants Carbone hopes to sign were attracted to the chance to move in quickly to an existing shopping center and taking advantage of established traffic patterns, he said.

He said 50 to 60 percent of his firm's business ventures are within the metropolitan Boston area. But he said Taurus recently completed a large development deal in Vermont and the firm is looking more at investments in northern New England now.

"We've been keeping an eye on Augusta and places like Bangor and other places in Maine," Carbone said. "I think we all look very favorably on doing business in Maine whenever there's an opportunity."

Turnpike Mall currently offers major retailers Sears, TJ Maxx, Petco, Sam Goody and Olympia Sports.

; a host of smaller shops including Maine Made & More, Cardsmart and GameDay; and a number of specialty kiosks.

Gary Remal -- 623-3811, Ext. 518

gremal@centralmaine.com

[Caldor1999]

i went to teh carmel ames again they took down the paper that was covering the windows and  the auto center dore was unlocked so was teh fortn EN  so i would have been able to get in but i didnet wanan set off anything teh fron en had chains on them but there was no lock and it weas easy to take off

[Caldor1999]

there are the dores

[Caldor1999]

hears anouter h pic

[Caldor1999]

anoutehr fround pic again

[Caldor1999]

the back has gotten all messy now