In an era of super-sized everything, from clothes to cars to even fries and frozen meals, Kaufmann's yesterday unveiled what it hopes will woo more of the shopping public -- a store that's smaller than the norm.

	Elayne Zemarel stocks the fragrance display yesterday at the new Kaufmann's department store at the Waterfront in Homestead. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image.

At 140,000 square feet, the new Waterfront store that opens this week is about 30 percent smaller than the typical Kaufmann's and about a third less costly to build, said officials with the Kaufmann's/Filene's division of May Department Stores Co.

It is one of eight so-called "lifestyle" stores that St. Louis-based May has built in the last year or so, but the first for the Kaufmann's group. The seven others have been done for May-owned chains such as Filene's and Hecht's.

Because they are smaller and cheaper to build -- costing from $13 million and $18 million to erect, vs. $21 million to $25 million for a traditional store -- the new stores fit more easily into open-air shopping centers or tight urban markets where development opportunities might come now that mall construction has slowed.

But Dominick Ponti, Filene's/Kaufmann's divisional vice president of store planning, design and construction, and Mike Hubbell, who serves as Kaufmann's/Filene's regional vice president of stores, see changes inside as just as significant.

Parts of the walls can be moved around, flipped and repainted depending on whether Tommy Hilfiger goods are selling better than Calvin Klein or a fall display is being replaced by a holiday one.

Few walls block views from cosmetics over to juniors or anywhere else, and the straight-round-the-store racetrack aisle design so common to Kohl's and Target has been used here.

Ponti said he took his cue from his own 14-year-old son in understanding the importance of moving the so-called tweens clothing away from the second-store children's area and down to rub shoulders with teen-size apparel.

Bringing back younger shoppers is a goal, although the planners are trying to be careful not to offend established older customers either. Tweens get funky vinyl flooring, stainless steel touches and huge, colorful photos, but there are still hints of wood and carpeting upstairs in the menswear section.

May isn't the first department store chain to try to loosen up a bit. Retailers from J.C. Penney to Lazarus-Macy's and Sears have been testing smaller formats, shopping carts and centralized checkout stations as they figure out how to adapt to customer demands for more convenience and less clutter.

The big stores' share of the market is slipping. America's Research Group, based in South Carolina, found about 16 percent of American families had walked into a major department store in June. Two years ago, almost 23 percent did so.

Despite pressure to change, some ideas being tried elsewhere just didn't fly with the May designers.

Mike Hubbell, left, regional vice president of stores, and Dominick Ponti, divisional vice president of store planning, point out features of the 140,000-square-foot store, which is about 30 percent smaller than a typical Kaufmann's. (Robin Rombach, Post-Gazette) Click photo for larger image.

The first lifestyle store, for example, put an express checkout station right at the entrance. It felt wrong. "We backpedaled and said, 'Let's take them off the doors,' " said Ponti. Now the express checkouts, which should always be staffed, are in central locations.

Other things that seemed to go too far from the classic department store model were overhead signs drawing attention to the checkouts and flashing lights that showed when a cash register was open. "We felt it was too supermarkety," Ponti said.

The new Kaufmann's, which employs 280 and is expected to sell about $18.8 million worth of home goods, cosmetics and clothing annually, could export ideas to the nine traditional stores already in the market. There also may be places to build more small stores here, said Hubbell.

But, for now, some of the interest in the Waterfront location has as much to do with how it will affect existing Kaufmann's stores Downtown and at Century III Mall, in West Mifflin. There's been speculation the new store signaled plans to close one or both of those, a conjecture that May officials have consistently denied.

"We would like to think that we could co-exist because there's a customer we haven't been serving," said Hubbell, who queried shoppers who wandered in Monday when the doors opened to give employees some experience running the registers. One woman from the Homestead area told him she hadn't felt before that there was a store nearby.

Yesterday, Churchill resident Susan Rishe came in to check out the new place though Monroeville Mall is closer to her home. "I like the Waterfront area," she said. She also likes to go Downtown occasionally because the store there is bigger and has more selection.

Rishe was checking out the coats on the second floor and expected to buy one before the day was over. "So far," she said, "I've had a very good impression."

Shoppers can buy tickets to a charity event at the store today and the doors will be open again tomorrow, but grand opening events start Friday.