Some Connecticut Lord + Taylor locations set to close within weeks
Danbury, Farmington locations first in line; but no update on timing of Stamford, Trumbull closings
The bankrupt departmentstore chain Lord + Taylor plans to shut down its stores at the Danbury Fair mall and Westfarms mall in Farmington within the next two to four weeks, but it has not provided an update about the closing dates for its establishments in Stamford and Trumbull.
Le Tote, parent company of Lord + Taylor, outlined its plans for the Danbury Fair and Westfarms locations in recent letters to the state Department of Labor — correspondence that followed an October letter that had said the Connecticut stores were expected to close in the first half of December. The labor department has not received new letters about the closing schedule for the Stamford and Trumbull stores.
“The reason for the postponement of separations is that business conditions, including favorable inventory levels not envisioned at the time of the original notice, have enabled the company to extend store operations approximately four weeks through the holiday season, benefiting both our teams and communities with this employment extension,” Ed Kremer, Le Tote’s chief restructuring officer, said in the letters. “These circumstances were not known at the time of our Oct. 1 notice about the store closings.”
A message left for a Le Tote spokesman seeking an update about the Stamford and Trumbull stores was not immediately returned Monday.
Town of Trumbull officials told Hearst Connecticut Media that the company has not informed them of the timeframe for shutting down at Westfield Trumbull mall.
A message left for Stamford economic development director Thomas Madden about Lord + Taylor’s standalone store at 110 High Ridge Road was not immediately returned.
At the four Connecticut stores, Lord + Taylor has been holding closing sales since announcing in August that it is shuttering all 38 of its locations. Earlier that month, Lord + Taylor and Le Tote filed for bankruptcy.
Lord + Taylor plans to lay off about 150 employees in Connecticut, it told the labor department
in October. The job cuts are expected to include 58 positions in Stamford, 40 in Trumbull, 28 in Danbury and 24 in Farmington. Affected employees are not unionized.
The demise of Lord + Taylor, which is the country’s oldest department-store chain and was founded in 1826, did not come as a surprise. Reports had circulated in recent months that it had been weighing liquidation sales as soon as its stores reopened from temporary closings sparked by the coronavirus crisis.
Its pre-pandemic struggles contributed to Hudson’s Bay Co.’s decision last year to sell the business to Le Tote, which is a rental-clothing company.
In January 2019, Lord + Taylor shut down its flagship store in Manhattan, ending a 104-year run for the midtown establishment. The property was sold for $850 million to coworking firm WeWork and partner Rhone Capital.
Other recent bankruptcies include Brooks Brothers; J. Crew; J.C. Penney; Neiman Marcus; Stage Stores; Tailored Brands,
which owns Men’s Wearhouse and Jos. A. Bank; and Ascena Retail Group, which owns several brands, including Ann Taylor, Justice and Lane Bryant.
Retail staff represent one of the worker groups hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis. In Connecticut, the industry gained 1,500 jobs in October. But the total trailed by 10,400 the sector’s statewide headcount in October 2019, equivalent to a drop of 6 percent.