Santa Fe’s Kmart store survives yet another round of closures
Despite chain’s downturn, loyal shoppers keep coming back
The Santa Fe Kmart, in a nonglamorous shopping center on St. Michael’s Drive, is a survivor in an uncertain retail world.
It has been around as long as Monick Martinez can remember.
The Chimayó resident, 45, remembers coming to the bigbox store with his grandparents as a kid. Now, as a commuter who works in Santa Fe, he shops at the same store.
Speaking to the Journal after a quick shopping trip Wednesday morning, Martinez said he is driven by convenience. The Kmart is closest to his work at the state Department of Transportation — he sometimes gets some shopping done on his breaks — and he said that being a frequent shopper comes with deals.
“I get some discounts, sometimes it’s better than Walmart,” he said. “Of course, they don’t have as much as Walmart, but the stuff I need, I get here.”
The local Kmart is one of a small handful left in New Mexico and just a few hundred
left in the United States following years of closures as the chain has been buffeted by Amazon, competition from Walmart and Target, and new expectations among shoppers.
The Sears Holdings Corp., which owns Kmart and Sears, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in mid-October. It announced that it would close 142 more Sears and Kmart stores by the end of this year. A few weeks earlier, the company had already listed 42 other “unprofitable” stores it planned to close by the end of the year.
According to the corporation’s most recent quarterly report from August, 360 Kmarts and just over 500 Sears stores were still open in the U.S. That compares to 610 Kmarts and 640 Sears reported to be still up and running during the same quarter in 2017.
The decline has been precipitous — the company reportedly had a record total of 4,000 stores back in 2012. The Sears store in the Santa Fe Place mall shut down last year.
When the October closures were announced, one headline in the Wall Street Journal was “Kmart’s Blue Light Dimming (Almost) Everywhere,” a reference to the chain’s old in-store, 15-minute “Blue Light Specials.” CNN’s take was also dour: “Things are bad at Sears. They’re worse at Kmart.”
But the St. Mike’s Kmart so far has avoided the hit lists.
“It’s been here,” Kmart shopper Martinez said. “It’s one of these stores that will hopefully always be around.”
According to Kmart’s store locator on its website, its only locations in New Mexico are in Santa Fe, Hobbs, Farmington and Roswell. All the Kmarts in Albuquerque have closed their doors in recent years. In the most recent closure announcement, Albuquerque’s last Sears at the Coronado Center was set to close. Back in May, the Sears at Cottonwood Mall, and the Kmart on Carlisle and I-40 were also identified as closing stores.
So how has this Kmart kept its head above water?
A corporate spokesperson for Sears Holdings declined to comment about the Santa Fe store and attempts to reach the local store manager were unsuccessful.
Simon Brackley, president and CEO for the Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, cited several possible reasons the local Kmart has stuck around.
The store seems to have a good niche location, for one thing. Brackley noted that the location is off busy St. Michael’s Drive, with plenty of parking and a grocery store nearby. Food King is located in the same shopping center. “It’s convenient for people to do a week’s worth of shopping,” he said.
He also mentioned that it is not only the closest bargain “variety” store for people who live in midtown Santa Fe, but also those from Eldorado, Pecos or Glorieta coming into town to shop.
A major factor, he said, could be customer loyalty. People and families that have been shopping there for years may be in the habit of going there and know where to find the items they want.
“I think Santa Feans are creatures of habit,” Brackley said when asked about the importance of loyalty to local consumers. “We don’t change very easily, and that’s a component of it. It might be loyalty to a restaurant, or loyalty to a discount store.”
While leaving the store this week, Cathy Herrera of Española also said she used to come to the store with her grandmother and has been coming for years. Now, she said, she’s “just used to being here.”
Herrera, 50, said she prefers the Kmart over other local options. She specifically enjoys coming in the summer for garden items and for Christmas decorations during the holiday season. She also likes the clothes she can buy there for her grandchildren and godchildren, as well as the Broncos apparel they carry. “(It’s) convenient,” she said of the store. “I find different things.”
The recent news of more nationwide closures of Sears and Kmart was one reason Santa Fe resident Sam Estrada came to the Santa Fe store this week.
Though he does much of his shopping at Walmart or Home Depot, both located off Cerrillos Road, Estrada said he hopes the Kmart doors remain open. He added that the city needs the variety of shopping options.
“I think we forget sometimes because it’s kind of off the beaten path compared to where the other stores are located,” said Estrada. “So I think we kind of forget it’s an option.”