Developer Buys Former Macy’s in Westwood

Madison Marquette, a Cincinnati-based real estate firm, has acquired the building that once housed Macy’s in Westwood for an undisclosed price. The firm said it plans to gut the 225,000-square-foot structure and divide it into three or four stores. The project should be completed by the summer or fall of 2001, said Mike Tewalt, Madison Marquette’s vice president of development for the Western region. Negotiations to buy the building began almost as soon as Federated Department Stores Inc., Macy’s corporate parent, announced the closure of the Westwood store in early 1999. The building on Weyburn Avenue near Westwood Boulevard opened in 1951 as one of the first suburban locations of the now-defunct Bullock’s department store chain. Tewalt said efforts will be made to protect some of the exterior’s mid-century design features. In addition to the Macy’s site, Madison Marquette owns about 185,000 square feet of commercial space in Westwood Village.