By DON SPRINGER
CROSBY A rumor floating around the Crosby area for more than a year is coming into fruition.
The Palais Royal department store chain is bringing a store to Crosby. The new store will be located in the former Wal-Mart building on FM 2100 and is scheduled to open March 22, 2007, according to Palais Royal, Melissa Busby, District Manager.
Renovations of the building are currently underway. This will provide the store with its needed floor space and interior design. The building has been empty since Wal-Mart vacated it several months ago to relocate to its current location.
Busby said the building contains 18,000 sq. ft. 15,000 of which will be used for sales. The firm plans to have 15-20 employees at the new store and will over hire initially to get things started.
Interviewing for the new positions will begin in February, she continued. We are looking forward to our move to Crosby. Busby said the store manager has not been named but they are considering a woman who is currently employed out of state and wants to return to Texas. The selection will be announced when confirmed.
Speaking for the Crosby-Huffman Chamber of Commerce, President Steve Coon said the Palais Royal move to Crosby is awesome. It will be a positive business move for the Crosby area to have a department store of that stature located here. We are in a growing area and should embrace this as part of that growth. This should pave the way for additional stores of this type to open businesses here.
The addition of Palais Royal at the new location will fill a large vacancy in the business located along 2100.
Rumors about Palais Royal have been the talk of the town for several months and increased over the past few weeks when the firm made positive commitments to area representatives.
According to Busby the new store will carry men, womens and childrens clothing, shoes, jewelry and fragrances. It is expected to be an attractive business addition to the Crosby area inasmuch as there are a limited number of stores in Crosby with this type merchandise.
Initially, we will stock the stores with merchandise similar to that stocked in the Liberty store.
Palais Royal is owned by Stage Stores, which also owns stores under the name of Bealls, Peebles, and Stage. Its home office is in Houston.
Currently the closest Palais Royal stores are in Baytown, one on Garth Road and another in the San Jacinto Mall. Another is located in Liberty. The closest Houston stores are located on Uvalde Road and Federal Road.
