The news recently was that the Italian luxury shoe maker Tod’s had purchased shares in Saks (NYSE: SKS). Apparently Diego Della Valle, Tod’s Chairman (called the Italian Ralph Lauren), purchased 8.48 million shares, and he paid $30 million, the price of a few decent Palladian villas, for what is one of America’s iconic retailers.

He must know what he is doing. Here’s why:

First, I think Italians know how to deal with an economy that’s all screwed up, and socialized, and sell quality goods in that environment. In stratified societies where there is old money, you buy good quality, and keep it repaired. That’s the way it was in the 1970s in rural Virginia. While it wasn’t socialized, it was definitely stratified and stagnant. The poor bought luxury for flash, to give themselves a little burst of glamor. And the old money (or declining money) spent carefully on quality, and spent the rest of their treasure at Dollar General, Safeway and Western Auto.

I am always curious how Saks is doing. It is a relic, and a good one, and a trip to the local store reminds me of the one on Fifth Avenue, if just for a fleeting second. It gives you a glimpse of that big old store, even on the Tamiami Trail suburban strip. So I went in the Sarasota, Florida Saks Fifth Avenue store on a Thursday afternoon, after a trip to the post office. Of the department store brands that are still around, the only ones that have a real national classic cachet are Lord & Taylor, Bergdorf and Saks. While Nieman Marcus and Nordstrom have cachet, the don’t have New York cachet and brand appeal, and that’s important.

The Saks was buzzing. Humming actually. The music was a slightly unfamiliar popular standard, but it gave the right atmosphere. The lighting was correct. The staff was busy, but not so busy that they didn’t meet your eyes when you walked through. It was in contrast to some press reports that non-performing stores would have to be closed.

I don’t know which lines were selling the most, but Trish McEvoy, Bobbi Brown, Keihl’s and St. John were featured brands. The shelves looked fairly full; one problem I often see in Saks in recent years is that the stores take a minimalist approach and don’t have enough to sell, and so must rely on selling goods that are way too marked up for anyone but the fantastically rich. That’s in direct contrast to the Saks of old, which, while exclusive, sold soft lines for all markets.

There are still problems. You go in the store, and there are Lucky sweats right as you come in the door. I find Lucky sort of trashy. And I still also have a sense that the shelves feel a bit lean, though they aren’t as lean as they were earlier this year. And I still wonder how their store in Richmond, Virginia is doing. While I lived there, it always seemed empty, and the assortment out of tune with a conservative Southern city. Recent comments from CEO Stephen Sadove in the Wall Street Journal had one worrisome quote, saying that many customers should buy $700 handbags instead of $1,000 handbags, but within the same brand. I am sure he knows his customer, but I am not sure who is buying $700 handbags these days.

The Fifth Avenue real estate that Saks owns is worth hundreds of millions, but not as much in the current market. We could guess at its value, but the only true value would be if the company had to sell the real estate, and we will only know that when or if it happens.

Where does Saks go from here?

Saks might well go into an old playbook to figure out a way to revive itself. In the 1950s, for instance, they had a ski shop in North Conway, New Hampshire, run by a fellow named Carroll Reed. Eventually he spun it off into his own store. Instead of just a retailer, Saks should think of itself as being an incubator of brands and retail concepts. They are considering leasing space to vendors, which is an excellent idea and harkens back to tricks old department stores used to play to keep revenue coming in. What is forgotten is that the old department stores were not just retailers, they were in the business of real estate, and leased out dozens of different departments inside their stores.

P. Schoenfeld Asset Management LP, a hedge fund firm and Saks shareholder, has called for governance reforms at the struggling luxury chain. Reuters reported recently that Barclay’s analyst Robert Drbul said the chain’s biggest issue was the faltering demand for luxury items. No duh! “The big question is when will the top line return? When will demand return? That’s out of their control,” Drbul said.

Yes, all of that is out of their control. But what is under Saks’ complete control is that they have a decent amount of cash and credit, some good real estate, an excellent brand and a very long track record. They should and can be able to adapt without losing their cachet. It’s all about being creative, and if they have that, they can sell goods. Saks survived the Great Depression and World War II rationing, after all.

Saks is not another Barney’s. I don’t understand the fuss. Because if Saks can’t make it with its sterling assets, we are in for a far bigger heap of trouble than just one more department store joining B. Altman, Gimbel’s, Peck & Peck and Bonwit Teller in the great store graveyard.

We got this email from a reader named Chris, who was interested in the surviving downtown department stores. He said that Mast had gone into an old store and opened it up.

Greenville, SC has a Mast department store that is just a few years old; it’s in a former Meyers-Arnold department store building on North Main Street, right downtown.

There are other Mast locations, all in downtowns in the Carolinas and Tennessee. Not a Macy’s or a Dillard’s, but Mast stores have clothes, shoes, housewares, gifts, candy, etc.

We looked up the website of Mast, which was originally just in Valle Crucis, North Carolina. A bit of history on Mast:

The Mast General Store began as the Taylor Store in 1883. W. W. Mast bought half interest in the retail establishment in 1897 and then in 1913 purchased the remaining half of the enterprise. The store remained in the Mast Family for some 60 years and developed quite a reputation across the mountain region as the store that had everything.

The Mast family sold the store in 1973, and it went on the National Register. It closed in November of 1977 but residents of Valle Crucis banded together in an effort to save Mast. John and Faye Cooper purchased the Mast Store and reopened it in June of 1980. Since that time the store had regained its reputation as “the store that had everything.”

Since then, they have expanded across the South. While they have an antique, old timey look, this is not a Cracker Barrel gift shop. It has top brands, and is proof that people will shop downtown in a downtown department store if the merchandising is good, the sales help is friendly and the brands aren’t crap.

Mast locations include:

• Valle Crucis, North Carolina
• Old Boone Mercantile, Boone, North Carolina
• Waynesville, North Carolina
• Hendersonville, North Carolina
• Asheville, North Carolina
• Greenville, South Carolina
• Knoxville, Tennessee
• Blowing Rock, North Carolina

Says Vaughan, “It has operated continuously in Downtown Lawrence, Kansas since 1857 – that’s correct 1-8-5-7! It has been passed down through one family and has been in its present four-story building since 1926.”

Vaughan says it “survived William Quantrill’s sacking (burning) of Downtown Lawrence in the Civii War. It is truly a retail gem!”

Vaughan comes from an entrepreneurial family; his grandfather owned a group of neighborhood theaters in the early part of the 20th Century in Kansas City, Kansas.

His father operated “Joe Vaughan Men’s Clothing” on Minnesota Avenue in Downtown
Kansas City, Kansas from 1928 to 1968, as well two savings and loans from the 1890s to the 1980s in Kansas City, Kansas.

If you are in Lawrence, please visit Weavers.

Who says you have to go to Walt Disney World to find Main Street USA?

Read our List of Surviving Downtown Department Stores.

Macy’s Florida President J. David Scheiner said to a meeting of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce that the company would consider the $20 million renovation if the city could prove that the the store can generate that much in additional sales.

”The only way we would do it is if we see the ability to pick up at least $15 million in sales,” Scheiner said, in a Miami Herald story reported by Elaine Walker. “That isn’t going to be done by people coming nine to five. It isn’t going to be done without a whole downtown revitalization.”

The city of Miami has been encouraging Macy’s to invest in the store; Macy’s officials meanwhile have criticized Miami for the ragged condition of Flagler Street, and have threatened to leave downtown. This comes at a time when thousands of new apartments and condos have opened up in downtown Miami.

Nationally, Macy’s is cutting back and recently announced a major reshuffling and the shuttering of its Miami office. In south Florida, Macy’s has won acclaim for its renovation of its South Beach store, and the recent opening of a Todd English restaurant, Figs, at a West Palm Beach store.

The Miami store is one of many downtown stores that are legacies from the many stores merged into Macy’s. Macy’s has renovated some of the stores, including the former Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia and the former Meier and Frank in Portland. Read more about it in our story on Surviving Downtown Department stores.

BrandlandUSA suggested that Macy’s revive the Burdines name as a private label. Perhaps the store could be revived in the manner of Portland, where the store building has been restored as Macy’s at Meier and Frank.

Noted New Urbanist planner Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, dean of the University of Miami School of Architecture, encouraged both the city and the company to work together to save the store. “They can’t do it by themselves.”

It is hard to believe that at one time, Richmond Renaissance and the city of Richmond wanted to tear it down. Luckily, smarter heads prevailed.

Today, the Miller & Rhoads aspect of the building is a potent lure to visitors, who get to see but a sliver of what was the most Virginia of places, the Miller & Rhoads department store. In its heyday, the store was a living reflection of what it was to be a Virginian, though even by the 1970s, they lost their edge. (Thalhimers had Ralph Lauren and the good brands; Miller & Rhoads had stuff like Arrow and Farah. Miller & Rhoads, after all, sent Perry Elllis packing because he started a store on Grace Street called Sunny Day.)

The Hilton copy says it:

Formerly the beloved Miller & Rhoads Department Store, the original marble floors and restored millwork grace the lobby, providing our hotel guests with a combination of historic charm, southern hospitality and modern amenities. This new and inviting Hilton Garden Inn hotel is an easy choice for the discerning traveler and for families who are looking for a place they can feel at home.

Please do go to Richmond and book a room, and think about when Richmond was at its cultural apogee, and “southern hospitality” was king .

According to the Times-Dispatch, the retail space in the building has yet to be leased. This retail space is on the south side of the building, along East Grace Street.

Stuff that folks who want to come from across the country will want to know:

• There is no Tea Room at the hotel (big mistake) but at least some menu items will be on the banquet menu, which will be a potent draw.
• The clock is at The Valentine Richmond History Center.
• Santa has been at the Children’s Museum each Christmas. It’s a pitiful sight to have him out there. He needs to go back home downtown, to the hotel.
• The condo development used the mid-century logo of Miller & Rhoads, not the ugly one from the 1980s.

If you like reading about department stores, and like shopping in them and supporting them, please read BrandlandUSA’s list of surviving downtown department stores.

We do suggest Venture Richmond and those others who are promoting downtown Richmond like the Richmond Convention and Visitors Bureau leverage this building and history for all it can. This is a bit of a challenge because it is not a store, the thing that people want to see. They will have to improvise. We suggest:

• Hotel management needs to work together with cultural groups to schedule fashion shows in the ballrooms. This means the hotel, city and other cultural groups that traditionally used to meet in the Tea Room (Junior League) need to work to PROGRAM the event space in the hotel, however small it is.
• Collector shows ought to tap into the nostalgia of Grace Street, including Thalhimers, Montaldo’s, Cokesbury, Berry Burk, Greentree’s, LaVogue and the like. While there is not a giant market for Miller & Rhoads collector merchandise, there is a small devoted market for it, and combined with the market for all the regional fashion brands from Virginia, and the national fashion brands sold at the store, it would be interesting to tap into that with collector shows. A few years ago, I was WAY outbid on eBay for an empty coffee tin of Miller & Rhoads coffee. It went for over $80, I think. (Note: I WILL not ever give up my tin of Miller & Rhoads butter mints.)
• The lobby, however small, needs to be a sort of public living room.
• Attract fashion “trunk shows” to come to promote brands like Doncaster, and other clothes companies that hold them.
• The things from mid-century Richmond need to be valued and promoted to give visitors a sense of the era. That’s a longer discussion than I have time for here, but it must be done for Richmond to regain its sense of itself. The era of Mad Men in Richmond was very exciting, and the new Miller & Rhoads needs to tap into it.
• Retail in the storefronts to be leased should complement what was in Miller  & Rhoads, and not just clothes but food, antiques, books, Virginiana, etc. This is FAR more difficult than it sounds as traditional retailing in downtown Richmond is more than a challenge. But again, it must be done or the momentum will be lost.

Now that the work of restoring the building is finished, there is much more hard work to be done. The good thing? It is all fun from here on out.

And we should emphasize that what needs to be done does not have to be extravagant or large, it just has to be good, and done with love. While M&R was a store, it was really about people. A simple good cup of coffee, served by the hotel with a gracious spirit, might be all that is needed.

We would love for readers to post some ideas on what THEY think should happen at M&R, and on Grace Street, in order to bring it back: