Levy Has Retailing In His Blood -- Gottschalks' Off-Rack Chief Gently But Firmly Brings Store To State

Joe Levy is missing.

It is the day before the opening of the Gottschalks store in Lakewood Mall south of Tacoma, during a pre-opening sale, and the chairman of Gottschalks Inc. is nowhere to be found.

Finally, Levy is located. Rather than sitting behind a desk in Gottschalks' executive suite, he is over in housewares, discussing turkey-basting techniques with a sales clerk. Levy loves life on the sales floor.

"This is where I should be," explains the compact, bespectacled Levy, who has the demeanor of someone who just wandered away from the accounting department rather than the hauteur expected of the multimillionaire chairman of a successful California chain of 24 department stores.

The neat, brightly lit Gottschalks store, whose displays and merchandise are generally a cut below The Bon but above Mervyn's, is opening in a building that formerly housed a Frederick & Nelson store. It is Gottschalks' first store outside California.

And, if Levy has his way, five more stores will open at former F&N locations, one each in Seattle, Bellevue Square and Southcenter and two in Spokane.

Levy has made Frederick's an offer - for an unspecified amount - that is pending.

"I think it has a good chance of going through," is about all the generally frank, engaging Levy will say on the matter.

Frederick & Nelson officials say they are unwilling to discuss offers for their properties until they have exhausted the search for

an investor willing to save the bankrupt department store chain, whose liquidation sale is in progress.

Levy is particularly interested in Frederick's Southcenter store. Its middle-class demographics fit especially well with his stores, which are known for highly promotional pricing and emphasis on brand names. But his offer has gotten the cold shoulder from Bellevue Square developer Kemper Freeman, who says Gottschalks isn't tony enough for his mall.

Freeman, who wants to make Bellevue Square more swank, has been quoted as saying, "No one ever called Gottschalks `upscale.' "

Levy suffers such comments with restraint. He has invited Freeman to visit the store but has received no response. So, too much the promoter to let the opportunity pass, he planned to call him again in hopes that a visit might allay Freeman's fears.

"We want Bellevue Square," he says firmly, with a smile.

For his part, Freeman is courting Saks, clearly an "upscale" store. The New-York based department store said last week it wanted to take over the larger section of the Frederick & Nelson store at Bellevue Square.

Like his stores, Levy clearly has the common touch. This day, he is wearing a white plastic Gottschalks name tag that matches those worn by his sales clerks. It has his name, no title.

And he delights in pointing out that he is dressed completely in Gottschalks clothing, from his off-the-rack Hart Schaffner & Marx suit to his Gold Toe socks.

"I'm a great believer in brand names," he says with a grin, opening his suit jacket to show off the label.

In fact, about 90 percent of the merchandise carried in Gottschalks stores is brand-name merchandise, he says. The store carries Estee Lauder and Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, Naturalizer, Reebok and Jasmin shoes and Liz Claiborne clothing.

Still, tables stacked with boxes and merchandise bearing less well-known names also lined the aisles of the Lakewood store, which was open yesterday for a special sale for shoppers who bought $5 tickets from Tacoma-area charities. And although brand-name goods were everywhere, often it was the middle-priced lines that were featured - mid-priced Lenox crystal, for example, rather than top-of-the-line, and Wedgwood housewares, not the megabucks Wedgwood display plates embellished with classic figures.

That's because Levy is going for the middle of the market.

"We really don't serve the top 15 percent and the bottom 15 to 20 percent," he says, "even though we welcome customers from both (ends of the spectrum)."

That strategy has succeeded. While other department store chains across the nation are suffering from slumping sales or filing for bankruptcy, Gottschalks has hardly noticed the recession. It reported a 9.5 percent increase in total sales in the recently ended fiscal year and an increase of 3.5 percent among stores open more than a year.

To be sure, not everything Gottschalks touched was gold. It closed its Petites West division last year and opened only one Gottschalks store in 1991, in Palm Springs, Calif., after opening about a dozen in the previous four years.

Unlike Frederick's owner David Sabey, Levy has retailing in his blood. Two great-uncles, Henry Korn and Emil Gottschalk, started the store in Fresno in 1904. Levy himself cut his teeth at May Co. and at a Des Moines department store, where, as a management trainee, he sold ready-to-wear, mail-order clothing in the basement.

Today, Levy is in his 37th year with Gottschalks. His cousin, Gerry Blum, is president.

But despite his position, Levy apparently has lost none of his retailer's zest for stalking a sale, pleasantly but firmly insisting that everyone he comes in contact with start a charge account with Gottschalks.

One prospect demurred, saying she was waiting for a store to open in downtown Seattle. Gottschalks has said it doesn't want the downtown Frederick's store, although it has expressed interest in some other location.

Laughing, Levy slipped a charge application into her hand.

"We're almost there," he said. "We're going to do something downtown."