'Last Man Standing': How Boscov’s Is Expanding As Big Department Store Competitors Fall Away

Department store giants like Macy’s and JCPenney have been shuttering stores left and right as a yearslong apocalypse for the one-time mall staples continues to claim victims.

But one Pennsyvania-based chain is managing to not just stay afloat. It's in expansion mode.

Boscov’s, the nation's largest family-owned department store chain, announced Friday that it plans to open its 51st store in The Mall at Greece Ridge outside Rochester, New York, sometime this fall. 

The 175K SF outpost will create 250 new jobs, according to a press release from the company based in Reading, where current CEO Jim Boscov’s grandfather Solomon founded it in 1914.

The department sector’s woes have often been attributed to the e-commerce boom and the foot traffic it drew away from malls and other brick-and-mortar retail. That shift hasn’t been a problem for Boscov’s.

“We continue to do well even when a mall fails,” Boscov told Bisnow of a phenomenon that has proven true over and over again in suburban Philadelphia, the chain’s core territory.

Boscov said the chain's two best-performing locations are in the Neshaminy Mall, an ailing Bucks County shopping center that was just 50% occupied last year, and Harbor Square, a strip center outside Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Now, the chain’s location at the Exton Square Mall is set to outlive the rest of the enclosed shopping center where Macy’s and JCPenney recently shuttered outposts.

“I hate to use the word dead mall, but it’s a dead mall,” said Abrams Realty & Development owner Peter Abrams, who finalized his purchase of the property from PREIT earlier this month. “Boscov’s is becoming the last man standing.”

Most of Exton Square will be demolished and replaced with a walkable mixed-use town center, but the Boscov’s will remain open. Abrams plans to build a new Main Street behind the store, connecting it to apartments, restaurants, a gym and more.

“They’re doing well now in a dead mall,” Abrams said. “I can only imagine what they’re going to do with all of this around them.”

This won’t be the first suburban Philly Boscov’s at the center of a mall redevelopment.

Something similar happened with Granite Run, a beleaguered enclosed mall in Media, Pennsylvania, that was purchased by BET Investment in 2013 and converted into an open-air shopping center. The Boscov’s remained open and was even renovated after outliving the Sears and JCPenney locations that used to serve as fellow anchors.

“That says it all, that malls have been redeveloped around them,” CBRE Executive Vice President Steven Gartner said. “The question was always, ‘How do we keep Boscov’s and make the project better?’”

Aside from the consistent foot traffic, the family-owned chain’s flexibility in real estate negotiations has won it the favor of mall operators.

“They’re incredibly approachable,” said PREIT Chief Revenue Officer Joe Aristone, who has worked with Boscov’s extensively over the years.

“I’ve had situations with tenants where if they are in a position with leverage, they exert it. I think Boscov’s uses that leverage a little differently,” he added. “They’re happy to create a win-win for both parties.”

‘Old Fashioned Customer Loyalty’

Boscov’s is “one of a few remaining regional department stores out there,” according to John Zavada, a partner at retail-focused Columbus Consulting, based in Ohio.

The chain is also one of just a handful of family-owned department store chains still standing in the U.S. The other main contender is Iowa-based Von Maur, with 38 stores across 16 states. Dillard’s, with 270-plus stores, is a publicly traded company, though its namesake family still holds a significant stake.

Between 2010 and 2020, once-prominent chains like Henri Bendel, Bon Ton, Carson’s and Younkers were swept into the dustbin of history. In the years since, other chains have virtually disappeared. Sears went from 700 stores to just eight nationwide. Macy’s and Kohl’s announced dozens of store closures just this year.

The loyal customer base Boscov’s fostered over the past century-plus is the main reason it's still up and running, sources told Bisnow. Boscov's has locations in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio and West Virginia.

In many cases, allegiance to Boscov’s has been passed down through the generations. Aristone recalled shopping there as a child with his mother. He’s still a patron to this day, and now his adult daughters shop there, too.

Boscov said the chain maintains a deep inventory with a wide array of options for shoppers with different budgets. But Gartner doesn’t believe that’s where the main appeal lies.

“The things that they sell can be found in lots of other stores,” he said. “They stand for their brand, and therefore, they continue to generate old-fashioned customer loyalty to a department store … There’s an intimate relationship that can still exist between a bricks-and-mortar retailer and its customer.”

Gartner argued that most department stores lost that charm during the wave of corporate consolidation that swept the sector in the late 20th century.

“That’s where I see other department stores failed,” Gartner said. “Macy’s replacing John Wanamaker never felt like your local department store.”

Boscov’s has retained its candy section, a staple of old-school department stores, but the chain’s biggest connection to preinternet retail might be its focus on customer service.

It differentiates itself by having a large number of workers on the sales floor. Its counterparts can be in short supply at competing stores. 

“We don’t trim the sales help on the floor. It kills me when I see other companies do that,” Boscov said. “You have to find someone to take your money. It’s crazy.”

The chain will only open a maximum of one store per year, he said. That’s partly so more than 100 experienced workers can travel to the new location and train the new hires This process is an important part of preserving the company’s culture, the CEO said.

The retailer’s relatively small footprint and private family ownership have also allowed it to be more nimble than its competitors.

“You can be in a better position to do things that are more micromarketing-based,” Zavada said.

The best example of that is the robust sports apparel department at Boscov’s, Boscov said.

“In every market, we carry the local colleges, in some cases, the local high schools,” he said.

JCPenney in the Deptford Mall sells Philadelphia Eagles merch and gear for other pro sports teams. The Boscov’s there had even more Eagles options, but it also offers apparel from a dizzying array of local schools, including Penn State, Temple University, Villanova University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Return From The Brink

These days, Boscov said his chain brings in about $1.2B per year across its 50 stores. The company may not compete with Macy’s in terms of revenue, but it does with local foot traffic.

The Deptford Mall Boscov’s clocked 41,883 visits last month, which was only slightly behind the 48,905 and 44,069 posted by the Macy’s and JCPenney’s locations there, respectively, according to data provided exclusively to Bisnow by Advan Research Corp.

Boscov’s handily beat Macy’s at the Concord Mall outside of Wilmington, Delaware. The family-owned chain had 15,611 visits last month, while the larger company received just 8,027.

The chain's finances appear to be doing well in 2025, but that wasn’t always a foregone conclusion. Boscov's filed for bankruptcy in 2008, shortly before Boscov returned to the business where he worked alongside his grandfather as a teenager.

The CEO said the snafu was the upshot of Macy’s buying a smaller department chain called The May Co. This created a number of duplicate locations that Macy’s sought to offload.

“My cousin who was running the company at the time took advantage of that,” Boscov said.

The chain borrowed money to open 10 new stores in one year, but the maneuver backfired when the Global Financial Crisis tanked the credit market.

Boscov’s uncle, Albert Boscov, who retired in 2006 after leading the company for decades, returned to the helm to save his life’s work.

“He rallied the family, and we bought the company back out of bankruptcy,” the current CEO said.

The clan accomplished this, in part, with financing from the owners of several malls with Boscov’s locations, including PREIT.

“I think that it was to their benefit also that we survive,” said Boscov, who added that his company is debt-free today. “I think it helped me learn the importance of being conservative financially.”

The past bankruptcy is the other main reason the company limits itself to opening one new store a year, he said.

Boscov’s is a deeply suburban chain in the 21st century, but as many of the malls where the stores are located continue to struggle, developers are plotting mixed-use residential developments.

Its CEO is unfazed by the changes in progress at Exton Square.

“Traffic comes through the Boscov’s doors, not necessarily the mall’s doors,” he said. “Whatever they do, it’s going to be okay for us.”

Abrams had no intention of advising Boscov’s executives on their retail operations, but he did have some ideas about how they could capitalize on the upcoming changes at Exton Square.

“I could see the candy part being right on Main Street,” he said. “Would they ever consider putting a cafe in the store? These are things I wonder about.”