Lord & Taylor files for bankruptcy; Boca Raton store kicks off closing sale

Marleen De Waele started her Sunday morning with a Starbucks coffee and a walk around Mizner Plaza in Boca Raton.

As she passed the retail store Lord & Taylor, window signs announcing 20% and 40% sales caught her eye. She entered the largely empty store and bought a $12 cover-up, marked down from $39, to wear over a dress. She was excited about her new fashionable find but disheartened to learn the deal was part of a closing sale.

Lord & Taylor at Mizner Park in

Boca Raton will join a list of businesses that have filed for bankruptcy since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s not the first one and not the last one,” said De Waele, an artist who lives in Boca Raton. “I’m sad because I think we’re seeing this more and more, and of course, the coronavirus is not helping.”

The company and its owner Le Tote Inc., an online rental clothing company that bought Lord & Taylor in 2019 for $100 million, both filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the

Eastern District of Virginia on

Sunday, the New York Times reported.

Nineteen of the company’s 38 stores began closing sales Sunday morning, Forbes reported.

The Associated Press reported that Lord & Taylor said the company is in search of a buyer and that about two dozen stores have filed for bankruptcy since the start of the pandemic.

In a message on the company’s website, it commended itself for being a company of firsts: the first to offer personal shopping, the first to have a branch store and the first to have a woman as its president.

But the message has a forwardlooking approach.

“Today, we announced our search for a new owner who believes in our legacy and values,” the statement reads, in part. “Part of our announcement also includes filing for Chapter 11 protection to overcome the unprecedented strain the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on our business.”

Spokespersons for Lord & Taylor couldn’t be reached for comment via email Monday.

The South Florida store’s website says the location is having a store-closing sale that began Sunday, with all sales being final.

The site says returns will not be accepted at the store anymore and will not accept online returns starting Aug. 14.

Coupons, mall certificates, Lord & Taylor reward and award cards or “prices offered at other Lord & Taylor locations” will not be accepted, the site says.

With 38 locations nationwide, the Boca Raton site is the only

location in Florida.

Spokeswomen for Mizner Park said the shopping center does not comment about its retailers. It is unclear what could replace the store’s location if it closed and when the store could potentially close.

For James Paresi Jr., an architectural design consultant and urban planner who lives in Connecticut but has visited the Boca Raton store in the past, the news from Lord & Taylor was not a surprise.

“The shame is the pandemic is basically just burning through the economy,” Paresi Jr. said. “We’ve never dealt with this.”

Paresi Jr. was only 11 years old the first time he stepped foot into a Lord & Taylor store. He ventured off to New York City, walked down Fifth Avenue and remembered being floored by the store’s pure white floors and bright green ferns. He even worked as the designer of the renovations at Chicago’s Water Tower Place, which once housed a Lord & Taylor

store, in 1999 to 2003.

Even before the pandemic upended life as we knew it in March, Paresi Jr. said he had concerns about the success and longevity of anchor department stores such as Lord & Taylor and others that have filed for bankruptcy, such as Neiman Marcus and Brooks Brothers.

“You really can’t gauge whether Lord & Taylor would have survived or not because the fundamental truth was it just wasn’t going to get a fair chance in this environment,” Paresi Jr. said.