Maas Brothers

The Maas Brothers brand went defunct in 1991 when it was consolidated into the Burdines department store chain, which in turn merged with Macy's in 2005.

Abe and Isaac Maas started their retail career in Cochran, Georgia, working with their brothers, Jacob and Sol.

In 1886, Abe decided to move to a better location and chose Tampa, at the time a small village on Florida's west coast.

In 1948, Maas Brothers opened its first full line branch store in downtown St. Petersburg.

By 1981, Maas Brothers opened its 17th store in Gulf View Square Mall in Port Richey.

It was in the same year that Canadian real estate developer Robert Campeau completed his takeover of Allied Stores Corporation.

As part of liquidation and cost cutting, Maas Brothers was consolidated with the weaker Jordan Marsh Florida franchise on Florida's East Coast in 1987 (Allied's Jordan Marsh had expanded from New England in 1956, later forming a separate Allied division).

This brought the total number of combined stores to 39 throughout Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

With the acquisition of Federated, Maas Brothers' formal rival, Miami-based Burdines, became its sister store.

As with the Allied acquisition, in order to cut costs, several back office operations for Maas Brothers, Jordan Marsh, and Burdines were consolidated.

The first Maas Brothers store is the only downtown store still standing
The downtown Tampa Store 1991
West Shore Plaza Store 1991
Mass Brothers-Jordan Marsh logo
Demolition of the downtown Tampa Store 2006