Crystal Court Broadway Metamorphoses Into Macy’s

The Broadway department store at Crystal Court, in Costa Mesa’s South Coast Plaza shopping complex, began its new life as a Macy’s store this past weekend.

The signs were changed on July 5, and shoppers entering the store over the weekend found the same kind of merchandise now stocked at other Broadway stores that have reopened under the Macy’s nameplate.

Federated Department Stores, which acquired the Broadway chain in 1995, has been converting most of the Broadways to Macy’s locations. Federated initially said it would open a Macy’s home furnishings store at Crystal Court and turn its other holdings at South Coast Plaza into a Macy’s department store and a men’s apparel store.

Federated might still change the old Broadway into a furnishings store, but “at the moment, it is a Macy’s department store and will be, at least through the fall,” said Macy’s spokeswoman Merle Goldstone.

South Coast Plaza developer Henry Segerstrom had been pushing Federated to add a Bloomingdale’s location to his Costa Mesa center. But so far, the only Bloomingdale’s location in Orange County will be at Fashion Island in Newport Beach.

Greg Johnson covers retail businesses and restaurants for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-5950 and at greg.johnson@latimes.com.