Secret’s Out — Fort Worth’s WestBend is Getting the Second Market by Macy’s Ever

The largest component of Fort Worth’s WestBend mixed-use development on University Drive was originally intended to house a market.

The space was home to two successive groceries. First, it was a Fresh Market for about a year, and then it became a two-story, 53,000-square-foot Tom Thumb for about a year. WestBend’s anchor spot has sat vacant since Tom Thumb’s closure in September of 2017.

It will be home to another market soon, but of a very different kind ― only the second Market by Macy’s ever― the new prototype concept for the retail giant. The first ever Market by Macy’s, which feels like a collection of focused boutiques, opened this Thursday, February 6 in Southlake Town Square.

News of the WestBend Market by Macy’s was first reported by the Dallas Morning News and announced on WestBend’s Facebook page. When reached by PaperCity Fort Worth, Lauren Vocelle, media relations manager for Macy’s South Region, would not comment on the WestBend reports.

Vocelle only confirms that a Market by Macy’s will be coming to Fort Worth sometime this year.

Macy’s-owned Bluemercury is already a WestBend tenant, and a new Ascension coffee will be opening soon in the same building that Market by Macy’s will inhabit.

The retail giant revealed this week that it will embark on a three-year plan, that Macy’s calls its Polaris strategy, to restructure and streamline its brand.

Macy’s is downsizing significantly by closing 125 stores nationwide, mostly in under-performing malls ― that’s about one-fifth of the retailer’s total stores. It will also be consolidating its corporate functions at its headquarters in Manhattan ― closing its San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Lorain, Ohio, offices. The brand will be cutting about 2,000 people in all from its workforce.

“We are taking the organization through significant structural change to lower costs, bring teams closer together, and reduce duplicative work,” Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Southlake welcomes Macy’s freshest take in decades ― Market by Macy’s which opened today. And, Fort Worth will become home to its second.

North Texas will be the epicenter for this new shopping experiment.

For more on the new Market by Macy’s, read PaperCity’s full article on the concept here.