Caldor

The petite, curly haired young woman was busy hanging a shipment of sweat shirts at Caldor in Cranberry Mall.While hers is perhaps not the most glamorous job, she likes it.Kay Brown, a 26-year-old Westminster resident and daughter of Kenneth and Catherine Brown, works 6 to 11 a.m. four days a week, usually ticketing merchandise. She has worked part time at the store for almost 3 1/2 years.Brown, who is mentally retarded, has earned Carroll Haven's Achievement Award for continuous community employment.

Ellicott City's growing retail competition gets another competitor tomorrow with the opening of a new Wal-Mart, the county's first, at U.S. 29 and U.S. 40.The 125,000-square-foot store -- the retailer's 2,303rd outlet -- means more competition for the area's older national discount stores, such as Kmart and Caldor, and for the new Target store in the nearby Long Gate shopping center.The new store also might challenge some of the smaller, independent retailers in Ellicott City's historic district.

A suburban Philadelphia real estate investment trust said yesterday that it has agreed to buy the Anneslie Shopping Center, just north of the city-county line on York Road, and plans $1 million worth of renovations.Kranzco Realty Trust said it has a contract to pay $6.5 million for the 175,000-square-foot center, whose anchor tenants are Caldor, Rite-Aid and McCrory's.The center is the first Maryland acquisition for the trust, which went public last fall and now owns 26 properties, mostly strip shopping centers like Anneslie.

The Howard County Department of Planning and Zoning has approved a minor variance request that could lead to the redevelopment of Chatham Mall in Ellicott City, one of the oldest shopping centers in the county.The department agreed Fridayto allow Chatham Mall Co. LLP to reduce the required 100-foot setback from a public street right of way to 80 feet for two freestanding buildings totaling almost 151,000 square feet.The approval paves the way for the company to build a 14,820-square-foot building between the Giant and Kmart stores and a 136,000-square-foot building where Caldor is now.Caldor has declared bankruptcy and plans to close all eight Baltimore-area stores by mid-May.

A man who tried to rob an automated teller machine customer in Columbia may have stolen money from a woman at a cash machine in Ellicott City about an hour later, Howard County police said yesterday.About 5 p.m. Sunday, Clyde Mountjoy, 45, of Wheaton was driving away from a Provident bank at 10440 Little Patuxent Parkway in the Columbia's Town Center when he was approached by a man who demanded money but did not display a weapon, said Sgt. Steven Keller, a police spokesman.Mountjoy talked briefly with the man before quickly driving away, Keller said.

WESTMINSTER -- John A. Gebhardt, a 51-year-old former marketing executive, told a Circuit Court jury last week that shoplifting charges filed against him in October were the result of an overzealous Caldor security guard who refused to admit he made a mistake.The jury didn't buy the story.After nearly three hours of deliberation over two days, the four-man, eight-woman panel convicted Gebhardt on Friday on one charge of misdemeanor theft.Gebhardt was shopping in the Cranberry Mall store on theevening of Oct. 18 to pick up some hardware supplies, batteries and videocassettes.

What has four wheels, a motor, a refrigerator and a sink?Throw in a green umbrella and you have Jamie L. Jones' espresso and cappuccino stand at the corner of Calvert and Fayette streets.Ms. Jones, an aspiring actress who has put her waitressing experience to entrepreneurial use, set up the black-and-red stand outside the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse about two weeks ago. Her partner in the venture is Peter Winer, a financial planner.The idea for the cart came about six months ago when Mr. Winer went to Seattle and saw espresso stands everywhere he went.

The nation's retailers posted highly variable June sales yesterday, giving no clear signal about the direction of the economy.Overall, the results appeared to be stronger than those for May, a difficult month for the industry, said Budd Bugatch, research director at Ferris Baker Watts in Baltimore. "I'm not going to say the boom is here, but I think this is more positive," he said.In some ways, it was a strange month in retailing, one in which "tortoises" such as Hechinger Co. and Caldor outpaced the giant "hare" of the industry, Wal-Mart Stores.

Name: John ShellyHonored by The Carroll County Sungeb for: Retiring last month from the Westminster barracks of the Maryland State Police after 33 years of serviceAge: 58Residence; hometown: WestminsterEducation: Graduate of Towson High School, Baltimore County; completed courses in law enforcement at Catonsville Community College, Baltimore CountyFamily: Wife: Elizabeth, 54, employed at Random House in Westminster; children: son, Stuart, 36, employee of...

Owners of TownMall of Westminster have hired a team of leasing specialists they hope will reinvigorate the mall. Strategic Resources Corp. (SRC), a New York investment adviser and fund manager for the mall, hired Daniel Group LLC, a Baltimore company specializing in shopping center leasing, to develop a plan. Eileen Stoner, who helped lease space at the recently opened Arundel Mills mall, was hired to work as an on-site leasing manager. G. Richard Hanor, a Boca Raton, Fla., businessman, was hired to help negotiate with anchor department stores.