Brown Shoe Co. to stay in St. Louis, consolidation to add hundreds of jobs

ST. LOUIS -- Brown Shoe Co. will remain in suburban St. Louis and add hundreds of new jobs over the next several years, the company said Thursday.

Brown Shoe had been considering a move to either Dallas or Madison, Wis., where its Famous Footwear division has been headquartered for several decades. Now, the Madison operation will be moved to Brown's headquarters in Clayton, Mo. The 270 Madison-based employees will be offered jobs and relocation assistance. Those choosing not to relocate will be given severance packages.

But the expansion in St. Louis goes beyond the jobs coming from Madison. Brown Shoe expects to eventually create an additional 230-430 jobs.

Ronald A. Fromm, Brown Shoe's chairman and chief executive officer, said the company "determined that creating one greatly connected footwear company is the right thing to do for our business."

He said the consolidation and expansion "will further enable us to attain our goal of doubling our rate of profitability while doubling our sales."

Brown Shoe shares rose 41 cents, or 2.7 percent, to $15.85 in Thursday trading.

Missouri, St. Louis County and Clayton provided $43 million in incentives to help fund training and job creation, as well as for redevelopment of the 12-acre headquarters site, Brown Shoe president Diane Sullivan said.

"We just thought that after 130 years, St. Louis was still the right fit for Brown Shoe," she said. "It made our future here the least disruptive to our business."

Gov. Matt Blunt called the decision "an exciting announcement for our state."

Wisconsin Department of Commerce spokesman Tony Hozeny said the city and state offered a "very aggressive and competitive package" of incentives to convince Famous Footwear to stay put. In the end, he said Brown Shoe made a business decision to relocate.

"The company has been here a long time and these are quality jobs," Hozeny said. "We wanted to retain this facility here."

Brown Shoe is a $2.4 billion company with about 13,000 employees worldwide, including about 650 currently at its suburban St. Louis headquarters.

In addition to Famous Footwear, Brown Shoe operates about 300 specialty retail stores in the U.S. and Canada under the Naturalizer, FX LaSalle, and Franco Sarto names, and operates an online division as Shoes.com. Its wholesale division also owns and markets footwear brands that include Naturalizer, LifeStride, Via Spiga, Nickels Soft, Connie and Buster Brown.

Famous Footwear was founded in Madison in 1960 under a different name. Brown Shoe acquired the chain in 1981. Famous Footwear is now one of the nation's largest footwear retailers with 1,100 stores. Plans call for an additional 100 stores this year.