In 1909, Gimbel built a Gimbel Brothers Department Store in New York City, which became a huge success. Building upon this success, Gimbel purchased a 16-story building in New York, to which he added three more floors to give Gimbel Brothers Department store 27 acres of floor space. Gimbel grew his company into the largest department store organization in the world with $123 million in net sales by 1930 and 20,000 employees.