ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, January 10, 1997 TAG: 9701100013
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
THE CLOSING OF Lazarus' Jefferson Street store points to the changing face of retail in downtown Roanoke.
If you ask Chip Lazarus, the big story isn't the closing of his downtown women's clothing shop.
The news, really, is that the Jefferson Street store survived as long as it did, outliving other downtown apparel stores that folded or relocated as one-time downtown shoppers fell in love with malls and discount emporiums.
When the downtown Lazarus closes after business hours today, Chip Lazarus will have more time and resources to focus on his three successful branches, all mall tenants: at Tanglewood Mall, Towers Shopping Center and New River Valley Mall. The Lazarus store at Valley View Mall closed a year ago.
"There's just no retail stores like us downtown," he said. "There's no traditional women's apparel store."
He had hoped that the shuttering of Heironimus' flagship store last January would somehow bolster his business by driving customers down the street to Lazarus, but it had the opposite effect. "When Heironimus closed, it was really another notch downward," he said.
Some of his most loyal customers continued to come downtown, as did a bit of convention traffic from the Hotel Roanoke, but it wasn't enough.
"We are very sad about the Lazarus store closing," said Matthew Kennell, executive director of Downtown Roanoke Inc. The departure of the store points toward the changing face of South Jefferson Street and of downtown retail in general, he said. The area has been the focus of recent revitalization efforts by Downtown Roanoke.
"It's really emerging not only as a retail district but also as a financial district," Kennell said. A different kind of retail shop is thriving there now - a wine shop, a tobacco store, restaurants.
"It's going through an evolution," he said. "Traditional retail in general is going through a real lightning-fast transformation."
The Jefferson Street Lazarus store was once the chain's busiest, with three floors of merchandise. But over the years, as shoppers left downtown, the store was reduced to one floor, and more business went to the branch locations.
That's one reason his shop survived downtown for so long, Lazarus said. "We had branch stores that were supporting the downtown store," he said. Sales at every branch store increased - or at least remained stable - in recent months, while the Jefferson Street location saw a "significant double-figure decrease," he said.
That led to a "Catch-22 situation," he said. Because the downtown store had less traffic than the branches, merchandise didn't sell as well there, so Lazarus transferred clothing to the branch stores. Traffic downtown dropped further as the inventory was depleted.
It got to the point, he said, that the downtown store just didn't offer enough merchandise to make the trip worthwhile for most shoppers.
Simon Lazarus, Chip Lazarus' father, founded the chain in 1924, when he bought a downtown millinery shop and later expanded it to include women's clothing. Chip Lazarus and his wife, Lee, took over the business in 1961. The downtown store moved to Jefferson Street in 1966 after occupying two other locations.
Lazarus owns the building, which has been listed for sale for more than a year. The 4,000-square-foot storefront is available for rent, he said. The chain's business offices and shipping and receiving operations, on the upper floors of the building, will remain downtown.
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA STAFF. Lazarus is closing its downtownby CNBwomen's clothing store after business hours today. The store has
been located at Jefferson Street since 1966.