J. C. Penney Chain Leases Store Here
View transcription
Old Munger & Long Site Acquired by Firm Entering Camden
The J. C. Penney Company, of New York, one of America's big chain department stores, has taken a 20-year lease on the old Munger & Long department store property at Broadway and Federal street, until recently occupied by Stecker & Sons.
This announcement, comprising one of the most far-reaching developments in Camden's real estate and mercantile fields in recent years, was made yesterday by the Lit Company, 207 North Sixth street, who negotiated the lease with John O. Wilson and Furman A. DeMaris, attorneys for Clarence A. and Herbert N. Munger, the owners.
The Penney company will take possession and begin operation of the new store about August 1. New floors will be laid, new show windows built, and the most modern lighting and ventilating arrangements will be installed.
The terms of the Penney company lease were not disclosed, but the gross rental consideration for the 20-year period was reported to be more than $1,000,000. The new tenants will take over the entire building, four floors and basement, with nearly 50,000 feet of floor space, except for a small section on the ground floor corner occupied by a Schulte cigar store, and a portion of the first floor rear which even under the Stecker management has been used by the F. W. Woolworth Company.
The Penney organization has stores in every state of the Union, with yearly sales around $180,000,000, and the Camden unit will be the 146th store in the chain.
"The leasing of the old Munger & Long property by the Penney organization should go far toward increasing business in Camden's entire retail shopping district," said an official of the Lit Company.
J. C. Penney started with one store and $500 cash in a town of 900 persons in Wyoming 30 years ago, doing $29,000 in sales his first year. Operating on a partnership arrangement under which store managers have acquired common stock in the company, the organization expanded to 500 stores in 22 years, mostly in the West, which have been nearly tripled in the last eight years.