Turn Style

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Turn Style Department Stores Inc.
Type	discount department store
Founded	1961 [1]
Headquarters	Brighton, MA, United States
Industry	Retail
Products	Clothing, footwear, bedding, furniture, jewelry, beauty products, electronics and housewares.
Website	None

Turn Style was a chain of discount department stores and was a division of Chicago-based Jewel, the parent company of the Jewel Food Stores supermarket chain. Each Turn Style had an Osco Pharmacy, at the time very uncommon for a discount store in the 1960s and 1970s.^[2]

Contents 1 History 2 List of former locations 2.1 Illinois 2.2 Indiana 2.3 Iowa 2.4 Massachusetts 2.5 Michigan 2.6 Nebraska 2.7 Wisconsin 3 References

[edit] History

Jewel acquired the Turn Style brand in 1961 and began rapidly expanding the chain. Sales for the 1961 year were listed as $14 million U.S. dollars with four stores, with headquarters in Brighton, Massachusetts.^[3] At its peak, the chain operated throughout the Midwest, as well as in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Within three years of opening the first Chicagoland store in Racine, Wisconsin, profits as measured on a ROI basis were the highest within Jewel Companies. Rapid expansion, the unfortunate corporate decision to incorporate a catalog type store within its four walls, and an unrealistic divisive venture into the "Hypermarket" business, all caused profits to suffer.

The economy also caused Jewel to rethink its growth strategy and the decision was made to sell Turn Style in order to concentrate its growth within its core businesses, which were food stores and drugstores. In 1978 the stores were sold to May Department Stores and converted to the Venture format. Other stores were converted to large Osco Drug Stores. Turn Style was considered a "cut above" mass merchant and its reputation in the marketplace was comparable to that of Target.

[edit] List of former locations

[edit] Illinois

• Arlington Heights - 750 E. Rand (later Venture, then Kmart, now America's Factory Direct Furniture)
• Chicago
  • 1740 N. Kostner (later Venture, then Kmart, now Cook Brothers Warehouse)
  • 4433 S. Pulaski (later Venture, then Kmart, now Target)
  • 125 W. 87th St. (later Zayre, then Ames; then Goldblatt's, then againAmes; now Burlington Coat Factory)
  • Ford City Mall (strip mall portion)
  • Harlem-Foster Shopping Center (now subdivided --Osco Drug portion of Jewel-Osco and a Burlington Coat Factory)
• Decatur
• Deerfield - Lake Cook Rd. @ Waukegan Rd.
• Downers Grove - 7401 Lemont Rd. (later Venture, now Best Buy and TJ Maxx/HomeGoods)
• Glendale Heights - 521 North Ave. (later Venture, torn down in 2000s and replaced with Menard's)
• Harvey - Dixie Square Mall (closed 1978, empty)
• Lombard - Southwest corner of Roosevelt & Finley (later Memco, now Dania Home and Office furniture store)
• Moline
• Niles - Four Flags Shopping Center
• Northbrook - Deerbrook Mall (later Venture, now Bed Bath & Beyond and Office Max)
• Oak Lawn - Cicero Ave.
• Schaumburg - 1311 Golf Rd. (later Venture, then Kmart; building torn down and replaced with The Great Indoors)
• Skokie - 9449 Skokie Blvd. (now Jewel-Osco, Old Navy, and other stores)
• Westmont - 52 E. Ogden Ave. (now Jewel-Osco, with McDade's Catalog store 1978, Handy Andy 1989, currently Hobby Lobby and Micro Center)

[edit] Indiana

• Indianapolis (3 locations)
  • 38th Street and High School Road (later Ayr-Way, then Target, now a flea market)
  • US 31 South at Stop 11 ( now Hobby Lobby )
  • East Washington Street and Franklin Road
• Merrillville - 6063 Broadway (later Venture, then Kmart, now Big Lots)

[edit] Iowa

• Davenport (sold to Venture in 1978; now Kmart)

[edit] Massachusetts

• Boston (4 locations, including one in Quincy and one in Medford at 467 Salem Street (now and Osco Drug))
• Lawrence (Located on Winthrop Avenue (Route 114) in what is now called Plaza 114. TurnStyle converted some space into an Osco Drug and Zayre's opened in the remaining space. Today Rite Aid, C1 Buffet, AJ Wright,and Dollar Tree occupy the space)

[edit] Michigan

• Grand Rapids - Plainfield Ave. NE (closed, and later part of headquarters for Meijer, Inc.)
• Kalamazoo - Maple Hill Mall (opened 1972. Later Meijer Square; torn down mid 1990s for Target)
• Lansing
• Wyoming - Rogers Plaza (opened 1972. Later Rogers Catalog Showroom, then Best Products, now Big Lots and Office Max)

[edit] Nebraska

• Omaha (2 locations)

[edit] Wisconsin

• Racine - Washington Ave.

[edit] References