By Julia Hall, Bangor Daily News, Maine Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Aug. 24--BANGOR, Maine -- Saturday's grand opening for Dick's Sporting Goods, the Bangor Mall's newest department store, will showcase a veritable playground for athletes and outdoor enthusiasts.
The store, which is housed in the former Porteous location, includes a putting green to test new golf clubs, an archery range and a small-scale running track in the footwear department.
'I think it's a fantastic addition to the shopping center,' said Bangor Mall Manager James Gerety, who likened the new department store to an athletic toy store. 'It has every conceivable product that you'd need to enjoy the outdoors.'
Dick's, which boasts 221 stores in 32 states, is the second largest sporting goods chain in the country, next to Sports Authority. The Bangor store will open Wednesday morning, but will hold its grand opening starting at 7:45 a.m. Saturday.
'Essentially, we've completely overhauled the space,' Jeff Hennion, senior vice president of Strategic Planning, said Monday from the company's corporate office in Binghamton, N.Y.
Porteous had occupied the anchor store from 1978, when the mall first opened, to early 2003. When Dick's assumed the lease on the space, it gutted the building from wall to wall, Gerety said.
'It's a brand new building,' the mall manager said.
Dick's recently opened a store in Portland near the Maine Mall, making the Bangor store the second in Maine, according to Hennion. At 69,000 square feet, the store is similar in layout and floor design to other Dick's locations and is the chain's largest single-story outlet, according to store manager Chris Ryder.
Gerety declined to say how long the space was leased for, but said that it was considered a long-term relationship between the store and the mall.
Because the number of Dick's employees varies seasonally, Hennion could not say how many people would be employed at the Bangor store, but said the chain usually employs anywhere from 50 to 100 people per store.
Last year, Dick's finished as the most profitable sports goods retailer in the country for the sixth year in a row. The company made $1.5 billion in terms of total sales, but its recent acquisition of Galyan's Trading Co. would have raised that number to $2.2 billion, Hennion said.
Saturday's opening event will feature the University of Maine cheerleaders, representatives from the National Wild Turkey Federation and officers from the Maine Warden Service. There also will be activities for children, including a compass demonstration by a local Boy Scout troop.
Bangor Mayor Dan Tremble will perform the ribbon-cutting ceremony Saturday morning to mark the official opening.
'There's going to be a lot of fun activities for kids,' Ryder said. 'We're just going to try to fit in with all the activities in Bangor for the (National) Folk Festival. We're just going to do it up.'
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