Charlotte, N.C.-based Belk, Inc. (www.belk.com), celebrating our 125th anniversary this year, is the nation’s largest family owned and operated department store company with 301 Belk stores located in 16 Southern states. Founded on May 29, 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, N.C., the company is in the third generation of Belk family leadership. Belk stores and our rapidly-growing belk.com website offer a wide assortment of top national brands and private label fashion apparel, shoes and accessories for the entire family along with top name cosmetics, a wedding registry and a large selection of quality merchandise for the home.
In 2010, Belk adopted a new brand – Modern.Southern.Style. – with a mission to satisfy the modern Southern lifestyle like no one else, so that our customers get the fashion they desire and the value they deserve. It also began investing approximately $600 million over a five-year period for key strategic initiatives that include branding, customer service, store expansions and remodels, and technology.
Belk has been committed to community involvement since our inception. Each year, the company gives a portion of its pretax income back to the communities it serves and during the past fiscal year, Belk and its associates, customers and vendors, donated more than $19 million to those communities.
Belk has served the Winston-Salem, N.C. community since December 1916, when a Belk-Stevens store opened downtown. Our 236,000-square-foot fashion store at Hanes Mall opened in August 1975, and was expanded and remodeled in 1989, followed by other remodelings in 2003 and 2008.