Elder-Beerman Announces a New Concept Store in Howell, Michigan Opening Fall 2000.

Business Editors

DAYTON, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 6, 2000

The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp. (Nasdaq NM: EBSC) announced today a new store opening in Howell, Michigan. This store, scheduled to open in the fall of 2000, will be the Company's seventh Michigan store.

"We're very excited to expand Elder-Beerman's presence in Michigan and we are delighted with the Howell location. Our Michigan stores have done well, and the new Howell store fits into our strategy of being the destination department store in underserved markets," said Frederick J. Mershad, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "The Howell store will incorporate the new department store concepts successfully introduced last fall in our new Warsaw, Indiana and Frankfort, Kentucky stores."

The Howell, Michigan store will be located in the Grand River Plaza, a strip center on Grand River Avenue, and will occupy approximately 74,000 square feet. The shopping center is situated along Interstate 96, midway between Detroit and Lansing. This store, the third of Elder-Beerman's new concept stores, will carry Elder-Beerman's traditional merchandise mix of brand name apparel, accessories and shoes for men, women, juniors, young men and children, cosmetics and fragrances, plus a full assortment of home furnishings. The store's new concept design will enhance the customer shopping experience through a more convenient store layout and high-capacity fixturing that will attractively display more merchandise in less space.

The features from the Company's other concept stores that will be incorporated in the Howell store include:

-- Centralized customer service centers - Multiple centers

conveniently located throughout the store that will be staffed

during all store hours to facilitate fast and easy purchases for

the customer.

-- Self-select cosmetics - All of the fragrances and about

50 percent of the treatment products will be available on open

shelves and other open fixtures for shopping convenience.

-- The Zone - A combined juniors' and young men's shop that creates

an exciting specialty store within a store for the generation

Y customer.

"Elder-Beerman looks forward to treating our future customers in Howell to an enhanced, refreshing shopping experience by providing an attractive, exciting and up-to-date shopping environment that brings fashion, great value and superb service," Mershad commented.

The nation's eighth largest independent department store chain, The Elder-Beerman Stores Corp. is headquartered in Dayton, Ohio and operates 62 stores in Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Elder-Beerman also operates two furniture superstores.

This press release contains "forward-looking statements," including predictions of future operating performance, events or developments such as our future sales, profits, expenses, income and earnings per share. In addition, words such as "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "plans," "believes," "hopes," and "estimates," and variations of such words and similar expressions, are intended to identify forward-looking statements.

Because forward-looking statements are based on a number of beliefs, estimates and assumptions by management that could ultimately prove inaccurate, there is no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. Many factors could materially affect our actual future operations and results, including the following: increasing price and product competition; fluctuations in consumer demand and confidence; the availability and mix of inventory; fluctuations in costs and expenses; the effectiveness of advertising, marketing and promotional programs; weather conditions that affect consumer traffic in stores; the continued availability and terms of financing; the outcome of pending and future litigation; consumer debt levels; and other general economic conditions that affect retail operations and sales, such as the rate of employment, inflation and interest rates and the condition of the capital markets.

Elder-Beerman undertakes no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.