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Contacts: Melinda Cox, Existing Business Manager, Roanoke County Economic Development 772-2069
Wendy Lawrence, Sales Support Manager , JC Penney 989-4211
Grand Re-Opening Showcases the New JC Penney Profile
ROANOKE, VA. October 3, 2006 - JC Penney (NYSE:JCP), America’s largest direct merchant of general merchandise, will hold a Grand Re-Opening at the Tanglewood Mall store site in Roanoke County on Friday, October 6, beginning at 9:30 a.m. A Ribbon Cutting Ceremony will be held at the store’s mall entrance at 10:00 a.m with Store Manager Rick Bessett, Board of Supervisors Chairman Mike Wray, County Administrator Elmer Hodge, Local Colors’ Pearl Fu and a very special JC Penney retiree, Ruth Hodges. The department store recently completed a major renovation which began this past spring and involved 79,000 square feet of retail space. Penney’s at Tanglewood currently employees 120 individuals (47% full-time and 53% part-time) with 33 of these sales associates having 5 or more years of JCP work history. County Administrator Elmer Hodge reflected on the company’s success and longevity, “We consider Tanglewood Mall to be the County’s downtown. I find it extremely rewarding to celebrate JC Penney’s Grand Re-Opening after almost thirty years as a business partner. We are proud of their achievements, their commitment to our citizens and appreciate their long term contributions to the regional economic base.”
The complete renovation included: enlarged departments and 1,000 more feet of aisle space; new wall design to create area definition; brand new registers, phone, security, musak and HVAC systems; additional employees in areas with one-on-one service needs, additional handicap accessible fitting rooms and relocated customer service centers. Store Manager Rick Bessette said of the remodel, “After five months of hard work I believe that we have created a better shopping environment that will enhance our customers shopping experience. I would like to thank all of our store associates for their hard work as well as our customers for putting up with our mess while the work was under way. I hope everyone in the Roanoke valley will visit us to see our new look.”
JC Penney has been a pioneer in promoting its e-commerce with multiple venues. In 1995, the company began endorsing this concept on the catalog customer service pages with store promotions to follow in 1998 to enhance the introduction of a new logo and marketing them “Come in, call in, Log On.” Twelve years later, the company can show a sales bottom line of $1 billion from e-commerce which validated the company’s commitment to the customer service and Product value. Founder James Cash Penney said “The measure of our progress in civilization is the degree to which we bring our economic motivation into harmony with our ethical aspirations."
James Cash Penney, age 26, opened The Golden Rule, a dry goods and clothing
store, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, with partners on April 14, 1902. By 1913, 36 Golden
Rule Stores with partnerships were consolidated in Utah into one company and a
new corporation was formed, the J.C. Penney company. The company moved the
central office to New York City and, by the end of 1915, has 86 stores operating
in 13 Western states. Fast forward to 1973, when J.C. Penney became an anchor in
the new regional Tanglewood Mall in Roanoke, VA. Currently, in 2006, plans are
underway to open 44 new stores nationwide.
About JC Penney
JCPenney is America’s largest direct merchant of general merchandise. Its catalog-ordering network is the largest in the United States. It handles 35 million telephone calls a year and it’s four state-of-the-art logistics centers process more than 33 million orders a year. JCPenney Direct publishes and distributes 384 million catalogs annually and operates 1,050 JCPenney department stores in all the U.S. states (except Hawaii) and in Puerto Rico. The Company also operates 50 Renner department stores in Brazil. For more than 100 years, JCPenney has been serving American consumers by building our business on timeless values. That is our history. That is our future.