Storekeepers' Store

Into Chicago this week rolled 15,000 professional buyers of merchandise who swarmed to the Merchandise Mart ("world's biggest building"). There they were welcomed by some 550 manufacturing-tenants who now occupy nearly half of the Mart's 3,100,000 square feet of floor space. Trim co-eds from the University of Chicago and Northwestern guided them from elevators to exhibits. For beer, buyers visited The Kooler, a refreshment room designed to resemble a jail. They looked at 6,000 lines of merchandise, from collar buttons to calculating machines. Special attraction was the Hall of Science, devoted to house-furnishings, electrical and otherwise. In a pre-show message sent to 5,000 house-furnishing buyers, the Hall was described as FORTY THOUSAND SQUARE FEET OF IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR GETTING MORE HOUSEWARES VOLUME STOP YOU CANNOT AFFORD TO MISS THIS RARE FEATURE. Before leaving Chicago, buyers would order merchandise to the amount of $10,000,000. The Merchandise Mart can best be described as a store for storekeepers. Eighteen of its 21 floors are packed with clothes, curtains, rugs, chairs, tables, silverware, notions, toys, dishes, jewelry--all the merchandise commonly found in U. S. department stores. But the merchant is the customer and the manufacturer is the man-behind-the-counter.

Germ of the Merchandise Mart idea originated some 30 years ago when Marshall Field's was young and Marshall Field was running it. In 1929, Chairman James Simpson found that Marshall Field & Co.'s wholesale department needed new quarters. He decided to put up a building which would house not only Marshall Field but many another manufacturer and wholesaler, would be another State Street in its concentration of buyers & sellers. Getting from the Chicago & North Western Ry. a tract of land along the Chicago River, he built the Merchandise Mart. It is two blocks long and a block deep, cost Marshall Field & Co. some $30,000,000. Completed in Depression, it looked at first like a great Depression error. New York was the buyer's Mecca, Chicago a way-station. But Depression helped as well as hindered. To most buyers Chicago was much nearer than New York, and the convenience and economy of finding so many merchandising eggs in one basket soon made itself evident. In 1933, 104,000 buyers spent $137,000,000 at the Mart. In 1934 there were 205,000 buyers who spent $177,000,000. Last year, Mart management estimates, the Mart attracted 235,000 buyers who spent $216,000,000--a 22% increase over 1934 purchases. The Mart has begun to show an operating profit, though it has yet to make an appreciable return on its investment. Marshall Field (as manufacturer) is its own best tenant, occupying some 1,290,000 sq. ft. The other 550 tenants occupy the same footage, leaving some 600,000 sq. ft. still vacant. Space rents at about $1.50 a sq. ft., so last year Marshall Field took in about $2,000,000 in rentals.

Next biggest tenant is Simmons Co. (beds), which has 50,000 sq. ft. and expects 16,000 visitors this week. Other tenants include S. Karpen & Bros, (furniture), Bigelow-Sanford and Mohawk Carpet (rugs), A. H. Heisey and Fostoria (glass), Manning. Bowman and Vollrath Co. (houseware), F. Schumacher and L. C. Chase (draperies), Mallory (hats), B.V.D. (underwear), Interwoven (socks), Belding, Heminway, Corticelli (silks), International (silver), many another name familiar to U. S. shoppers.

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