Ohrbach’s Chain to Fold, Including 6 Southland Stores

The Dutch company that owns Ohrbach’s said it plans to discontinue the department store chain, which includes six stores in the Los Angeles area.

Amcena Corp. said the Los Angeles stores will remain open until a buyer is found. The other five Ohrbach’s stores, all located in the New York metropolitan area, will be converted into specialty clothing stores under a new name, the company said.

Amcena, which acquired Ohrbach’s in 1962, decided to discontinue the chain after attempting to change its image and merchandise to attract more-affluent shoppers.

William Sperry, an Amcena executive vice president, said the company, the American arm of the Netherlands-based Brenninkmeyer, spent more than $1 million each to modernize the Glendale and Canoga Park stores during the last two to three years. At the same time, the stores, which sell many of Ohrbach’s own brands, introduced higher-quality, name-brand merchandise.

Sperry said the efforts to upgrade Ohrbach’s met with limited success. “We realized that it would be a long, hard, competitive struggle, especially in a market like Los Angeles, and we couldn’t be assured that it would work,” he said.

“Maybe we were slow to react” to American shoppers’ obsession with name-brand merchandise, Sperry said, “but, if you have a successful formula, why change it?” He declined to discuss Ohrbach’s present financial condition.

Ohrbach’s was founded in 1923 by Nathan Ohrbach and Max Wiesen, a dress manufacturer, who each contributed $62,500 to finance the opening of the first store. They shunned name brands and designer clothing, becoming nationally famous for selling fashionable women’s clothes at prices lower than department stores.

Amcena said the New York stores will be renovated, restocked and converted to Steinbech stores, part of the Howland-Steinbach-Hochschild chain. Amcena, which also owns Miller’s Outpost stores, said it acquired the 23-store chain on Monday from Supermarkets General for an undisclosed amount of cash and short-term notes.

Sperry said Amcena decided against a similar restructuring of Ohrbach’s Los Angeles-area operations because the company found it difficult to operate on both coasts. “We didn’t want to repeat the problems we had with Ohrbach’s,” he said. He added that it had been difficult for Ohrbach’s to build up strong support from suppliers because its operations were geographically divided.

“We really don’t have use for those stores, and we think the real estate is valuable. We think we can realize that value” by selling the stores, Sperry said. Other Los Angeles-area stores are located at 6060 Wilshire Blvd. and in Cerritos, Torrance and Panorama City.