Gibbons Company is expanding its Reid Street department store by 10,000 square feet to accommodate new lines and new departments.

The expansion, which is already underway, will take three years to complete. The store?s expansion to more than 40,000 square feet of retail space bucks the trend of the Island?s other big department stores. The owners of HA&E Smith sold out to Trimingham Brothers one year ago and will now go out of business alongside Trimingham?s on July 23. A.S. Coopers and Sons remains a sizeable retailer although it has branched out into a number of smaller boutiques while it awaits the completion of a new albeit downsized retail space being constructed at its former home on Front Street.

Paula Clarke, Chief Merchandise Officer of Gibbons Company, said yesterday that her company created a three-year plan to expand long before Trimingham?s announcement that it would go out of business, however the plan has been redefined in light of this fact.

She said yesterday that despite the problems faced by other retailers Gibbons Company is ?doing very well and we are very confident about the future and what we can offer to the Bermuda public?.

?We?ve seen a steady growth of tourists filtering their way up onto Reid Street in the tourist months but our solid customer base is Bermuda,? she said adding that Gibbons Company has remained successful in the face of other stores closing because it has kept in tune with what is going on in the markets overseas and locally.

?We pay attention to detail and we are not afraid of change and we are not chasing a customer that doesn?t exist,? she said. ?We are listening to our customers and we are reacting to real information. We have a fantastic merchandise based computer system that allows us to look at our selling for every single day, pick up on trends and react to trends and make decisions to be able to keep a trend going.?

The three-year-plan recognises that the world is changing and Bermuda is changing with it. As such, Gibbons Company recently closed its fashion fabric department which was a declining business. The company has now opened a smaller craft store in the adjacent mall leading to Church Street.

?Our buyer narrowed [the stock] down to everything the customers need so we still sell pins, buttons, threads and scissors in addition to crafts. We cut out the fashion fabrics, but we are still selling fabrics for crafts,? Ms Clarke said adding that the new shop has only been open a week but is already a success.

By August, Gibbons Company will open larger children?s department on the third floor.

?It will free up a lot of our space on the Reid Street level which will allow us then to rework our adjacencies, free up more space, bring in more lines and a better and wider selection in women?s wear, men?s wear, intimate apparel and sleepwear.?

Gibbons Company also plans to take over and expand into the entire Church Street mall area behind the department store once the leases of the current few tenants expire. This move should happen by the end of 2006.

The store has already expanded into Capital-G?s former retail banking area with a new Home Decorating department that offers up all sorts of accessories for the home. The adjacent bed and bath and home areas are also due to be remodelled.

The basement housewares department will remain as it is. Ms Clarke said that the store hopes to pick up some of the bridal business from Trimingham?s although Gibbons will stick to everyday casual lifestyle dining items and not branch into fine china.

At this time Ms Clarke was unable to disclose the names of any of the lines that Gibbons Company will pick up, however she said that the store is talking with some of the cosmetics companies that were once exclusive to Trimingham?s and she is confident that Gibbons Company will be home to some of those lines in the future.