Gus Mayer Stores Inc. is a

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

based, family-owned department store. The two-store chain is owned by the Pizitz Management Group. It has locations at The Summit in the Greater Birmingham area and

The Mall at Green Hills The Mall at Green Hills is a shopping mall located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The mall has more than 100 stores and restaurants on two main floors totaling , including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany & Co., Burberry, Crate & Barrel, Apple Sto ...

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

, both of which are known as high-end retail centers. Typical brands carried include 7 for all Mankind,

Juicy Couture Juicy Couture is an American casualwear and dress clothing brand based in Arleta, Los Angeles, California. Best known for their iconic velour tracksuits which became a luxury staple in the 2000s, the company was founded by Pamela Skaist-Levy and ...

Dolce & Gabbana Dolce & Gabbana (), also known by initials D&G, is an Italian luxury fashion house founded in 1985 in Legnano by Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana. The house specializes in ready-to-wear, handbags, accessories, and cosmetic ...

Roberto Cavalli Roberto Cavalli (; born 15 November 1940) is an Italian fashion designer and inventor. He is known for exotic prints and for creating the sand-blasted look for jeans. The high-end Italian fashion house Roberto Cavalli sells luxury clothing, perfu ...

Gianfranco Ferré Gianfranco Ferré (; 15 August 1944 – 17 June 2007) was an Italian fashion designer also known as "the architect of fashion" for his background and his original attitude toward creating fashion design. Early life and education Ferré was born ...

Michael Kors Michael David Kors (born Karl Anderson Jr. August 9, 1959) is an American fashion designer. He is the chief creative officer of his brand, Michael Kors, which sells men's and women's ready-to-wear, accessories, watches, jewelry, footwear, and f ...

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Zac Posen Zachary E. Posen (; born October 24, 1980) is an American fashion designer. Early life Posen was born and raised in a Jewish family in New York City, residing in the SoHo neighborhood of lower Manhattan. He is the son of Susan (née Orzack), ...

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, St. John,

Monique Lhuillier Monique Lhuillier (born September 15, 1971) is a Filipino-French fashion designer and creative director known for her bridal, ready-to-wear and lifestyle brand. She launched her eponymous brand in 1996 and has since established fashion houses in L ...

, and

Burberry Burberry is a British luxury fashion house established in 1856 by Thomas Burberry headquartered in London, England. It currently designs and distributes ready to wear, including trench coats (for which it is most famous), leather accessories, ...

. It was founded in 1900; the original Gus Mayer department store was located on Canal Street in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

. At one time, there were more than 20 Gus Mayer stores across the Southeast and Southwest. The first Birmingham location opened in 1922 in the Retail Block behind the Molton Hotel on 5th Avenue North. Later the store was located at 2240 Highland Avenue in the Bottega Favorita location, now home to Bottega Restaurant & Cafe. Two years after the Brookwood Village mall opened in 1973 the store moved there. In 1975, when the stores were being sold off individually, the Pizitz family purchased the Birmingham operation and later added the Nashville location. These two are the only remaining Gus Mayer stores today. In 2002 the

Colonial Brookwood Village Brookwood Village was a upscale shopping mall located near Birmingham in the cities of Mountain Brook and Homewood, Alabama. History Early history Originally known as Brookwood Mall, it was constructed in 1973 by the Shepherd family. The ...

store was relocated and expanded along with the renovations to the mall. Hambrecht Oleson Design Associates of New York designed the new store with local architects Crawford,

McWilliams and Hatcher McWilliams is a surname. Notable people with the surname include Reese guarino Mcwilliams *Alfred McWilliams (1844–1928), Canadian politician from Prince Edward Island * Bill McWilliams (1910–1997), American baseball player * Brendan McWilli ...

. The shoe salons at Gus Mayer, which include a full-line

Stuart Weitzman Stuart A. Weitzman (born 1941) is an American shoe designer, entrepreneur, philatelist, and founder of the shoe company Stuart Weitzman. Weitzman has designed footwear for Beyoncé and Taylor Swift. Career In the late 1950s, Weitzman's father, ...

boutique and a

Cole Haan Cole Haan is an American brand of men's and women's footwear and accessories that serves markets worldwide. The company was founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1928. Cole Haan currently has its headquarters in both New York City and Greenland, New Ham ...

concept salon, are owned independently by David Kraselsky, who leases the store space. In 2010 the Gus Mayer at

made plans to move to The Summit as part of an updating of the store's merchandising strategy sometime around Valentine's Day, 2011. The new store was also designed by Hambrecht Oleson. Bayer Properties petitioned the City of Birmingham for $500,000 in tax abatement incentives for the deal.

References

External links

Gus Mayer
{{Department stores in the United States Companies based in Birmingham, Alabama Department stores of the United States