Home Store to Open at Buffums Site

The closing of one store will beget another at Westminster Mall.

A new Robinson’s-May home store will open as soon as March in place of a shuttered Buffums department store, bringing new life to space that has sat empty for more than a year.

But the new home store will be filled largely with merchandise being taken from the mall’s Robinson’s store, which is being consolidated into an existing May Co. store. The two chains are being combined in Southern California.

So what to do with the closed Robinson’s? Westminster Mall’s General Manager Nancy Feightner said negotiations are underway.

One by one, areas vacated by Buffums are being filled. In its former Buffums site, Fashion Island Newport Beach installed a Circuit City electronics store on the first floor and a Structure apparel store on the second.

Laguna Hills Mall also plans to divide its Buffums store as part of a mall-wide renovation next year. The site is likely to include a large book or video store.