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Higher quality merchandise will appear when the Medford Meier & Frank becomes a Macy's next year About the only thing the new store manager of the Rogue Valley Mall's Meier & Frank can promise is change. Of course, change was already on the way before Joe McGrew came to Medford from the chain's downtown Salt Lake City store. Meier & Frank's parent, the May Company of St. Louis, Mo., and Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores completed a merger on Aug. 30. But most of the visible changes won't bubble to the surface until about a month from now. Among the most noticeable changes created by the & 36;17 billion deal will be the renaming of all May Company stores to Macy's. That means the end of the venerable Meier & Frank name, which has been prominent in Oregon retail circles since the company's founding in 1857. But there's much more to it than just putting new signs on the buildings. — When you have two & 36;15 billion companies integrating their systems, it's not something you can turn on with a switch and it all works, says McGrew, 38. It takes a lot of lead time. We're buying the merchandise we'll be selling in late spring of 2006 right now. While the four-floor Salt Lake City store covered about 200,000 square feet, the Medford store takes up about 150,000 square feet. It's not always about floor space, it's about volume and we had less volume (in Salt Lake City), says McGrew, adding that the local store is among Meier & Frank's top revenue producers per square foot. McGrew says the split location, with two floors on the west side of the mall and one on the east, isn't unusual in this era of retail consolidation. He points out that May has three separate locations for home, men's and apparel stores in California's South Coast Plaza in Orange County. What the crowded Medford store, which celebrates its 20th anniversary next October, lacks is curb appeal and selection. It's a tight store and sometimes it's a challenge to keep it open and looking clean, McGrew says. But it's my job to make it more presentable and a better department store. Still, we do a lot of business. On Jan. 29, Meier & Frank will fade into history when Robinson-May, based in Los Angeles, hands over control of the 20-store group to Federated's Macy's Northwest office in Seattle. That will give Macy's more than 70 stores in a six-state region. It should also bolster the bottom line for the region. Macy's Northwest had & 36;981 million in sales last year, accounting for 6.3 percent of Federated's overall revenue. Exactly how the transfer translates in merchandising isn't clear, but McGrew anticipates a shift to higher quality wares. There are a lot of the moderate-priced brands that will change, says McGrew, who grew up around Portland and has been with Meier & Frank for 14 years. We'll get better, higher-end merchandise, but we're definitely not going to be as promotional as May Company. Among the visible apparel lines Macy's offers for men and women is Ralph Lauren. At least two May Company private brands ' Karen Scott and John Ashford ' will be in all Macy's stores beginning in fall 2006. Other May Company private labels and brands will be discontinued over time. Macy's Northwest spokesperson Kim Reason says that once the transition takes place, managers will remain with the company, but they may be placed in other stores. She also said the specifics of what lines will be carried and how they'll be displayed are still being worked out. We're going to be surveying the market and customer base in order to ascertain kinds of assortments found at that store, Reason says. The system integration is going to involve everything you can imagine and everything you can't imagine. Expecting change"[email protected].