$6.5 million to remodel the downtown store. In 1986, Associated Dry Goods was acquired by The May Department Stores Company in a stock swap valued, at that time, at approximately $2.47 billion. Between 1986 and 1990, several Ayres chairmen and CEOs arrived and departed as the May Company tried to improve Ayres's profitability, which also included store closings in Louisville and Cincinnati. In the late 1980s, the May Company shuttered the former Pogue's and Stewart's locations, reducing the number of Ayres locations to fourteen. Three Ayres stores in Cincinnati at Tri-County Mall, Kenwood Towne Centre, and Northgate Mall, were sold to J. C. Penney in 1988. All three stores have since been closed or relocated. In April 1991, a May spokesperson announced that the Ayres flagship store would not be a part of Indianapolis's proposed Circle Centre mall. The project, adjacent to the downtown Ayres store, was already under construction. It was no surprise when May announced on October 25, 1991, that the downtown Indianapolis Ayres store would close, as would three of its Indiana branches. Also in 1991, the Ayres operations merged with the St. Louis, Missouri-headquartered Famous-Barr division of May, although the Ayres nameplate was retained. Parisian opened a store in the Ayres downtown Indianapolis space in 1995; Carson's replaced the Parisian store in 2007 and it closed in 2018. Federated Department Stores acquired Macy's in 1994 and The May Department Stores Company in 2005. On February 1, 2006, Ayres was subsumed into the newly created Macy's Midwest (now Macy's Central). Most of the Ayres locations became Macy's stores, with the exception of the Greenwood Park Mall and Castleton Square stores in the Indianapolis suburbs, where the existing Lazarus locations were retained as the surviving Macy's store. The Ayres stores at the Greenwood Park Mall and Castleton Square were later demolished. Stores and subsidiaries Flagship store Ayres offered a full line of merchandise and services, but it was especially known for women's fashions and its Tea Room, Christmas events and displays, and the budget store. The Tea Room, which operated at the Indianapolis flagship store from 1905 to 1990, served shoppers in a formal setting. Its purpose was to entice shoppers into the downtown store; the restaurant itself never operated at a profit. The local gathering spot also provided informal modeling of store fashions for its diners, who were predominantly women. The menu, which remained consistent for decades,