It’s pretty cool to have your own giant retailer right in the neighborhood. Though Bealls Inc., prefers to keep a low profile, its big 18-wheelers are a constant reminder as they rumble over our local highways. Its headquarters in Bradenton is an enviable hub of commercial activity. The family-owned company, founded in Manatee County and dating to 1915, operates 522 retail stores across the Sun Belt, from Florida to California. It is the county’s largest private employer, with more than 1,900 workers locally, and more than 10,000 total. What makes Bealls cool is that it’s not all huffy about itself. For instance, you can find relatives of Bealls’ executive chairman, Robert M. “Bob” Beall II, shopping at their neighborhood Bealls department store. And Bob is a devoted wearer of his company’s own merchandise: He always looks comfortable in casual knit shirts and crisp khaki pants. Three years ago, the company spent $10 million to buy a new office building on the campus of another big local employer, Tropicana Products Inc. The building accommodates part of the Bealls’ staff, which had outgrown offices in an industrial park on the edge of Bradenton. Of course, the company threw a big grand opening when it renamed the building “The E.R. Beall Center,” a tribute to the son of founder R.M. Beall Sr., who first opened a store here in 1915. The company served a lovely buffet including coffee, tea and baked goodies along with Tropicana juice, in honor of its neighbor, a giant producer of citrus juices. Another cool thing about Bealls is its highest-ranking female executive, Lana Cain Krauter. As the president of the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Bealls Department Stores Inc., Krauter had worked many years in retail, with an emphasis on merchandising. She was formerly a member of the executive team at JCPenney Co. Inc. Women have long been an important force at Bealls. For example, at a nondescript industrial office park on the edge of Bradenton, the company boasts the state’s only in-house design studio operated by a Florida department store chain. Many of its designers are women, who create original clothing styles and items like beach towels, dinnerware, lamps, candies and coir mats that exude a Florida feel. Some of those items are prominently displayed in a new, 68,524-square-foot prototype store that the company opened in Sun City Center. The glistening, multi-million department store, at S.R. 674 and Interstate 75 in the Cypress Village Shopping Center, represents what the future holds for Bradenton’s first family of retailers. Sara Kennedy, Herald reporter, can be reached at (941) 708-7908 or at skennedy@bradenton.com
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