Macy's Plans Distribution Center, New Jobs In Columbus

COLUMBUS, OH – Macy's, the Cincinnati-based retailer that has closed dozens of its stores nationwide over the past year, announced a plan to open a new distribution center in Columbus where some 400 people will be employed. The new center, which is slated to open in the fall of 2019, will supply Macy's Backstage discount locations.

The state of Ohio also is giving the retailer a 1.4 percent, 8-year job creation tax credit for the project, announced Gov. John Kasich's office on Monday. The tax incentive is in exchange for Macy's promise to create 410 full-time jobs and an estimated $13.6 million in additional annual payroll in Columbus, reported Kasich's office.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority approved the tax credit on Monday.

Macy's has opened about 20 Backstage locations in the first quarter of fiscal 2018 as part of a plan to open 100 locations within existing Macy’s stores in fiscal 2018. Many of the stores are in markets new to the Backstage concept, including the northwestern and southwestern United States. The company’s initial Backstage stores were clustered in the northeastern.

There are two Backstage outlets in Ohio, one in Mentor and the other in Cincinnati, according to the company's web site.

"Our customers are thrilled about the Macy’s Backstage shopping experience," said Michelle Israel, Macy’s senior vice president of off-price, in a statement. "We’re pleased to be expanding the Backstage shopping experience across all of our regions, including to the West Coast."

The distribution center in Columbus expands the company's footprint in Ohio. The new employees will be in addition to the approximately 6,500 employees in Ohio who work at 24 Macy’s stores, one Bluemercury and the company’s corporate offices in the greater Cincinnati area.

The expansion also comes just more than a year after the retailer announced sweeping plans to close 68 stores across the nation. Among the stores that closed, four in Ohio – in Columbus, Dublin, Sandusky and Steubenville – closed.

The Ohio Tax Credit Authority also approved a 1.2 percent, 6-year credit for Stonecrop Technologies in Gove City. The communications services provider expects to create 50 full-time positions, generating $2.2 million in new annual payroll, in its new project in Grove City.

File Photo: A shopper carries a Macy's bag in the Herald Square neighborhood of Manhattan, April 11, 2018 in New York City. U.S. consumer prices rose 2.4 percent in March from a year earlier, the fastest annual pace in 12 months. The U.S. Labor Department announced on Wednesday that, on a monthly basis, the consumer price index declined 0.1% in March but the index's yearly gain may suggest that inflation pressures may be gaining steam. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)