Peek inside Salem’s shuttered Macy’s as local owners prepare for next chapter
The smell of perfume still permeates the ground floor of Salem’s shuttered Macy’s.
“I think that smell is permanently ingrained in the carpet,” joked Kelly McDonald, part of the group of Salem owners who are working to reinvent the space as a hub in north downtown.
Stripped of mannequins, clothes, furniture and colorful bottles, the main floor now has the appearance of a hall of mirrors from the built-in display counters that remain lit with no wares to sell.
The system controlling hundreds of small lights is proprietary to the New York retail giant, McDonald explained. He took possession of the store April 1 but hasn’t yet been able to turn off the counters and overhead lights.
In the basement, two typewritten lists remain framed above a workbench in the 70-year-old building’s boiler room.
One describes the location of the valves that control steam flow to radiators heating the 188,000-square foot store. The other lists the location of thermostats and the departments they serve.
A bookshelf includes supply catalogs and handwritten maintenance records from the 1960s.
They’re some of the pieces of history visible in the building, which opened as Meier & Frank in 1955. Known for lavish events and its white tablecloth restaurant, the department store still has original flooring and wallpaper in some places. An area closed to the public was once a beauty salon, and fixtures for a half dozen sinks remain.
“There’s so many nooks and crannies to this building. It’s pretty fascinating,” McDonald said on a recent tour for Salem Reporter.
The property is connected via skybridge to the Salem Center mall, which the same investor group purchased last spring.
McDonald said he and other investors don’t plan to add housing.
The future of the space hasn’t been decided, but McDonald said the Macy’s closure at the end of March has prompted a wave of interest from potential businesses. He expects to have an announcement soon about plans for the space.
With Macy’s closed and the building largely empty “they start to see what it could be,” McDonald said.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
