Dillard’s welcomes first shoppers at grand opening in Liberty Twp.

Credit: DaytonDailyNews


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DILLARD’S INC.

What: Fashion apparel, cosmetics and home furnishings retail chain

Where: New store opens Oct. 8 at 7660 Blake Rd., Liberty Twp., inside Liberty Center development

Liberty Center Store Phone: 513-712-5902

Liberty Center Store Manager: Richard Lanthorn

Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays; and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays

Website: www.dillards.com

KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST ABOUT LIBERTY CENTER

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DILLARD’S INC.

What: Fashion apparel, cosmetics and home furnishings retail chain

Where: New store opens Oct. 8 at 7660 Blake Rd., Liberty Twp., inside Liberty Center development

Liberty Center Store Phone: 513-712-5902

Liberty Center Store Manager: Richard Lanthorn

Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays; and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays

Website: www.dillards.com

KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST ABOUT LIBERTY CENTER

Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates in this story:

Share your thoughts using #LibertyCenter

DILLARD’S INC.

What: Fashion apparel, cosmetics and home furnishings retail chain

Where: New store opens Oct. 8 at 7660 Blake Rd., Liberty Twp., inside Liberty Center development

Liberty Center Store Phone: 513-712-5902

Liberty Center Store Manager: Richard Lanthorn

Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays; and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays

Website: www.dillards.com

KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST ABOUT LIBERTY CENTER

Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates in this story:

Share your thoughts using #LibertyCenter

DILLARD’S INC.

What: Fashion apparel, cosmetics and home furnishings retail chain

Where: New store opens Oct. 8 at 7660 Blake Rd., Liberty Twp., inside Liberty Center development

Liberty Center Store Phone: 513-712-5902

Liberty Center Store Manager: Richard Lanthorn

Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays; and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays

Website: www.dillards.com

MORE EVENTS CELEBRATING DILLARD’S GRAND OPENING: FRIDAY TO SUNDAY

Maui Jim "Jimmy Junior" Shop (through Saturday, Oct. 10)

Shop the Maui Jim “Jimmy Junior” pop up sunglass shop and try on your favorite pair of Maui Jim sunglasses while these extra special selection of styles are available through Saturday only.

Grand Opening Celebration (through Sunday, Oct. 11)

Come by and see the new Dillard’s Liberty Center and register to win one of over $40,000 in total value prizes.

Customize your Sperry Shoes (Friday, Oct. 9)

Visit the ladies shoe department for a “customize-your-Sperry’s-shoe event” with the purchase of any Sperry shoes.

Saturday Scratch Cards (Saturday, Oct. 10)

The first 200 customers entering through the Liberty Way Dillard’s entrance will receive a scratch card for a special gift. Every card is a winner.

Personalize Your UGG Australia Boot (Saturday, Oct. 10)

From noon to 5 p.m., purchase an UGG Australia boot during the event and a professional artist will personalize that purchase with an etching design of one’s choice.

Meet Fashion Designer ELAN (Saturday, Oct. 10)

At 1 p.m., attend a special fashion presentation and personal appearance by Elan Savir, designer for ELAN International. The presentation takes place in the ladies apparel department on the second floor.

KEEP UP WITH THE LATEST ABOUT LIBERTY CENTER

Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates in this story:

Share your thoughts using #LibertyCenter

DILLARD’S INC.

What: Fashion apparel, cosmetics and home furnishings retail chain

Where: New store opens Oct. 8 at 7660 Blake Rd., Liberty Twp., inside Liberty Center development

Liberty Center Store Phone: 513-712-5902

Liberty Center Store Manager: Richard Lanthorn

Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Saturdays; and noon to 6 p.m. Sundays

Website: www.dillards.com

MORE EVENTS CELEBRATING DILLARD’S GRAND OPENING: FRIDAY TO SUNDAY

Maui Jim "Jimmy Junior" Shop (through Saturday, Oct. 10)

Shop the Maui Jim “Jimmy Junior” pop up sunglass shop and try on your favorite pair of Maui Jim sunglasses while these extra special selection of styles are available through Saturday only.

Grand Opening Celebration (through Sunday, Oct. 11)

Come by and see the new Dillard’s Liberty Center and register to win one of over $40,000 in total value prizes.

Customize your Sperry Shoes (Friday, Oct. 9)

Visit the ladies shoe department for a “customize-your-Sperry’s-shoe event” with the purchase of any Sperry shoes.

Saturday Scratch Cards (Saturday, Oct. 10)

The first 200 customers entering through the Liberty Way Dillard’s entrance will receive a scratch card for a special gift. Every card is a winner.

Personalize Your UGG Australia Boot (Saturday, Oct. 10)

From noon to 5 p.m., purchase an UGG Australia boot during the event and a professional artist will personalize that purchase with an etching design of one’s choice.

Meet Fashion Designer ELAN (Saturday, Oct. 10)

At 1 p.m., attend a special fashion presentation and personal appearance by Elan Savir, designer for ELAN International. The presentation takes place in the ladies apparel department on the second floor.

Many of the people who lined up Thursday morning for Dillard’s grand opening celebration at the $350 million Liberty Center praised the store’s selection and staff, but said what ultimately drew them to the store was convenience.

“We’ve had to go to Kenwood (Towne Centre),” said Tracy Capuano, of Liberty Twp. “There’s really not a great department store close by other than the outlet malls, which is not the same type of store. I love Dillard’s, I love their customer services. It’s going to be great to have this in our area.”

The nearly 160,000-square-foot store, which sits near Liberty Center's eastern entrance, distributed gift cards worth $10, $20 or $30 to the first 200 shoppers in a line that stretched around the side of the two-story Butler County building.

Terri O’Sullivan, of Liberty Twp., said she was looking forward to finding some good deals and experiencing Liberty Center for the first time.

“I’m just excited to see what the shopping center looks like on the inside,” she said.

The new Dillard's marks the retail chain's furthest north Cincinnati location and the first Liberty Center business to hold a grand opening.

Visiting the store Thursday was Yaromir Steiner, founder and chief executive officer of Steiner + Associates, the developer of Liberty Center.

“We’re opening a department store that is going to be a crown jewel for this region,” Steiner said. “The range of merchandising and the range of the cosmetics department is very surprising to me. I was expecting something good, but this is exceeding my expectations, and I think that many women I spoke with … were also surprised by the quality of what we’re offering here.”

The store has the potential to not only attract people from as far away as south Dayton, where there is no Dillard’s, but from all across the region, Steiner said.

Inside the store, shoppers walked a pink carpet, greeted by a cheering, applauding Dillard’s staff, many of them dressed in pink or at least wearing a pink breast cancer lapel pin.

Deejays played music on both floors of the store, while a second-floor “selfie” booth saw shoppers get dressed up in pink hats, sunglasses, bows, boas and other fun items to strike a pose for breast cancer research. A first floor Ray-Ban booth allowed shoppers to dance around in sunglasses, then get free flip books to relive their party-like-a-rock-star experience.

While many shoppers cited the selection of dresses, cosmetics, shoes or other items as their favorite part of the new Dillard’s, Nancy Trinka, of Hamilton, said the store’s location at Liberty Center is it’s best feature.

“It’s in the middle of everything, whether you want to go shopping here or go eat over there off Cox Road (in West Chester Twp.),” Trinka said.

Nicole Moorer, of Fairfield, said she likes that Butler County has a variety of shopping options as opposed to Cincinnati, where “it seems like everything is just the same.”

“We branch out up here,” Moorer said as she waited at the front of Thursday’s grand opening line. “Having (Cincinnati Premium Outlets in) Monroe and then having this opening, it’s a great thing and it brings more things into the community for jobs and families.”

Courtney Schmidt, who made a more than 30-mile trek from Cincinnati’s North Bend neighborhood to check out the store, said she wanted to see if the new store had anything different to offer compared to other Dillard’s locations.

“We’ve been to Kenwood and we have one in our suburb, as well, but we thought they would have some new variety for us out here,” Schmidt said. “We had some great Bengals clothes that we have not recently seen, so we just bought a couple of new sweatshirts.”

Dillard’s said it would donate 10 percent of all sales Thursday to benefit the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

During a ribbon-cutting ceremony, Dillard’s officials announced the company will donate $30,000 to Breast Cancer Research Foundation after selling 2,000 pink shirts to staffers at 130 Dillard’s locations nationwide, store officials said as they prepared to cut the pink ribbon signaling the opening of the grand opening of the new store.

"Research matters and Dillard's cares," said Myra Biblowit, president and CEO of BCRF, the largest private funder of breast cancer research worldwide. "This translates into 600 hours of research … (and) a better world for our mothers, our daughters, our sisters and our friends."

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