Thorndale, Phoenixville Kmarts to close
Locations are among 142 Sears/Kmart closures
Two Chester County Kmart stores will soon be closing. The stores — in Phoenixville and Thorndale — are on the list of planned Sears and Kmart store closures announced as part of Sears Holdings Corp. Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing Monday.
As part of its filing, the company announced it would close 142 unprofitable Sears and Kmart stores across the country near the end of this year.
The Chester County Kmart stores — at 1000 Nutt Road in Phoenixville and 3205 Lincoln Highway in Thorndale — are among 13 Pennsylvania Kmarts and three Sears locations that will close. Sears Holdings Corp. currently operates 36 Kmart stores in Pennsylvania and 56 Sears stores.
Six of the stores that will close are in the greater Philadelphia region, including Bensalem, Langhorne, Glassboro, N.J. and Deptford, N.J. Stores will also close in Allentown, Altoona, Carlisle, Hummelstown, Matamoras, New Kensington, Pittsburgh, Pleasant Hills and DuBois.
Liquidation sales at these stores are expected to begin soon, according to Monday’s announcement, although no schedule has yet been released.
The 77 Sears stores and 65 Kmart stores closing across the country are in addition to 46 unprofitable stores that had already been announced and expected to close in November.
Digital First Media reached out Tuesday to managers at both the Thorndale and Phoenixville Kmart stores. Both were unable to “answer questions at the store level,” according to one, referring questions to corporate communications at Sears Holdings Corp.
A call to corporate communications requesting information about the stores was unreturned by press time Tuesday.
No information has been made available about the num-
ber of employees at each store, or specific store information.
The Thorndale Kmart has been open at the same location since the 1970s. On Tuesday, about 30 cars were parked in the lot at the Thorndale Kmart. Several shoppers expressed surprise at the news that the store would be closing.
The Phoenixville Kmart is part of the Phoenixville Plaza Shopping Center, which is leased by Longview Property Group.
In its bankruptcy filing Monday, Sears Holdings Corp., which operates both Sears and Kmart stores, listed assets of $1 billion to $10 billion and liabilities of $10 billion to $50 billion.
The company once had
around 350,000 employees; as of Monday’s filing, that number was down to 68,000. At its peak, in 2012, it had 4,000 stores. Once the closures are completed, the company will be left with a little more than 500.
Sears joins a growing list of retailers that have filed for bankruptcy or liquidated in the last few years amid a fiercely competitive climate. Some, like Payless ShoeSource, successfully emerged from reorganization in bankruptcy court. Others, like Toys R Us and Bon-Ton Stores Inc., haven’t. Both retailers were forced to shutter their operations this year soon after Chapter 11 filings.”