New Chain

As president of Federated Department Stores, Fred Lazarus Jr. keeps as sharp an eye on population changes as the census bureau. "The U.S.," he likes to say, "is currently undergoing a highly significant population movement." -Nowhere is the movement greater than in the West and Southwest, where some cities have grown 80% in the last ten years compared to a 15% overall U.S. growth. This week, Fred Lazarus thought it time to cash in on the "highly significant movement." He announced that Federated, the third biggest department-store chain in the U.S., will invest $20 million in a new link of seven department stores, called Fedway, in small and medium-sized cities. First to get the new Fedway stores will be fast-growing Amarillo and Wichita Falls, Texas. After the first seven are finished, Lazarus says confidently, there will be "many more in the West and Southwest."

Federated hopes to bring the "big city" department store to smaller towns. Each Fedway store will be air-conditioned, windowless (except for show windows), carry everything from diapers to home freezers, have customer charge accounts, free delivery, parking space. Stockrooms will be built around the rim of the modernistic stores, so that clerks can give faster service to customers and refill their supplies themselves. For Federated, the stores mark two big changes. Up till now, it has expanded only by buying other stores. In its nine department stores and 16 branches, whose sales last year totaled $424 million, each store is independent, and does its own buying. But Fedway will be run as a unit with central buying headquarters in New York.

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