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New store packing it all inside
JCPenney, a tenant at The Shops at Wiregrass, opens its doors to customers for a trial run on Sunday.
By JAMES THORNER
Published September 29, 2005
WESLEY CHAPEL - They call it a soft opening, the trial run before the formal ribbon cutting when new stores work out their bugs and kinks.
But when the doors of JCPenney fly open on Wesley Chapel's Wiregrass Ranch at 10 a.m. Sunday, manager Connie Lant expects there will be nothing soft about the sales.
"We expect to be extremely busy all the way from Sunday to the grand opening on Oct. 7," Lant said.
The new 99,000-square-foot store at Bruce B. Downs Boulevard and State Road 56 opens decked out for fall and winter. Think artificial Christmas tree displays, sweaters and down vests.
And to those accustomed to the larger, two-story JCPenney at University Mall, the Wesley Chapel store represents the company's new prototype that copies the wide aisles and bright displays of rivals such as Target.
Cash registers line the store's three entrances, no longer lost among the various departments as in old JCPenney's stores.
An expanded beauty salon boasts waiting room chairs of green and purple. Extra services include facials and pedicures.
On Wednesday, the store looked ready to open but for the missing JCPenney signs on the facade and the storm shutters blocking the entrance doors.
Lant roamed the football-field sized enclosure as dozens of employees finished stocking shelves and racks and hung advertising signs atop ladders.
"We're spending this week finding a home for all this merchandise," Lant said as she darted past boxes filled with items still seeking a display space.
The Wesley Chapel store replaces the much larger University Mall store. But more efficient use of space ensures the full array of merchandise shoppers are accustomed to.
Outfits on racks, for example, are now hung 2 feet apart, less than the 21/2 feet separating rows of clothes at the old store.
JCPenney is the first tenant in a proposed shopping center called The Shops at Wiregrass. A dirt field beyond the store, still surrounded by construction equipment, is to be the second anchor, Dillards.
"We'll be totally alone for at least a year," Lant said.
[Last modified September 29, 2005, 01:19:16]
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