RadioShack set to pull the plug
It’s the end of an era for another former retail giant, as Woonsocket’s RadioShack announces it will close
WOONSOCKET – With its parent company in bankruptcy for the second time since 2015, RadioShack in Diamond Hill Plaza has announced it’s closing its doors.
A fixture of the plaza for years, RadioShack is expected to close by the end of April, a clerk who asked not to be identified said. Sprint, a mobile communications company that partnered with RadioShack after the 2015 bankruptcy filing, has already moved its goods out of the store and RadioShack has slashed prices on the remaining merchandise as it liquidates the stock.
RadioShack announced a list of 552 stores around the country that were slated to close after filing for bankruptcy earlier this month. Four other stores in Rhode Island were on the list, but not the Diamond Hill Road store.
The list, publicized around the middle of the month, would have left the Texas-based home electronics supplier with about 970 stores, but the clerk says he’s been told by supervisors that many of those could be closed as well before the bankruptcy petition is resolved.
The store carries a dizzying array of batteries, cables, adaptors, antennas and electronic components, along with remote-controlled toys, “robot kits” and flying drones. RadioShack used to enjoy a unique niche in the market, but in recent years the company has faced increasing competition from big box stores and online merchandisers.
Alex Watkins, a customer who just moved to the area from Texas, says he’s been shopping at RadioShack for years. He doesn’t come often, but when he’s trying to hook up a new piece of home electronics or get some other gadget to work, he knew he could find what he was looking for in a RadioShack store.
“If you have a project, there’s no place else to go,” said Watkins. “Now where are you going to find a store that carries those things?”
RadioShack was started by two brothers who launched their first store in Boston in 1921 to cater to a budding market for “ham radio” enthusiasts who wanted kits to build their own tiny broadcasting stations. The company thrived for many years, but by the 1960s RadioShack’s fortunes shifted and the company was sold to the Texas-based Tandy Corporation, a growing hobby supply company that later changed its name to RadioShack Corporation.
Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the chain is now owned by General Wireless, which is affiliated with a hedge fund known as Standard General and Sprint. They acquired control of the chain after a bankruptcy filing by RadioShack Corporation in 2015 that resulted in the closing of 2,400 stores.
That left the company with about 1,518 stores. Earlier this month, USA Today reported that the company filed for bankruptcy again and would close 187 of the remaining stores before the end of the month, plus 360 stores where RadioShack shared space with Sprint.
Radio Shack stores in Cranston, Warwick, Providence and Newport were on the list of store closures included in the initial bankruptcy filing, but not the Diamond Hill Road store.