Broadway Stores - The 1990s and The End

The 1990s and The End

From its heights in 1984 as the sixth largest department store chain firm in the United States, CHH fell into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1991. Besides the financial problems of surviving the 1980s era of hostile takeovers, the main California department store business had faltered because of increasing competition from Nordstrom.

In 1992, after one and one-half years of bankruptcy negotiations, financier Sam Zell and his Zell/Chilmark Fund completed the reorganization of the newly renamed Broadway Stores, Inc., taking a 75 percent stake. In early 1993, the three Utah-based Weinstock's stores were sold to Dillard's, Mervyns and ZCMI.

The newly-streamlined company was short-lived, however. In August 1995, Federated Department Stores agreed to acquire Broadway Stores. The chain was dissolved in 1996 as Federated consolidated the former Broadway, Emporium and Weinstock's stores, along with its own Macy's California and Bullock's chains (acquired in 1994), to form Macy's West. Several duplicative units were sold to Sears or shuttered, while Federated also used the real estate of five stores (Emporium-Capwell Stanford Shopping Center, Broadway Sherman Oaks Fashion Square, Broadway Century City Shopping Center, Broadway Beverly Center, and Broadway Fashion Island Newport Beach) to finally bring its Bloomingdale's chain to the West Coast.

On September 28, 2006, Emporium-Capwell's Market Street flagship was redeveloped to house another Bloomingdale's location as well as an expansion of the adjoining shopping center Westfield San Francisco Centre. In addition, the one-time CHH Corporate Offices at 550 South Flower Street, right next door to The California Club (of which Carter and Hawley were members), were converted into a three-star boutique hotel called "The Standard." Carter's and Hawley's twelfth-floor corner offices were converted to "extra large penthouse suites" with two bathrooms - the original ones for the executives plus lavish new ones to include bidets and jacuzzis.