Sears is closing its last department store in Illinois, the retailer’s home state
The Sears division retailer within the Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, a Chicago suburb, will shut on November 14.
Transformco, which acquired Sears Holdings after the corporate filed for chapter in 2018, confirmed its plans to redevelop the property.
“We intend to reinvigorate and maximize the worth of the actual property whereas enhancing the patron expertise with common retailers that match the regional draw of Woodfield Mall,” stated Scott Carr, president of Actual Property for Transformco.
“That is a part of the corporate’s technique to unlock the worth of the actual property and pursue the very best and greatest use for the good thing about the area people,” Larry Costello, Transformco’s public relations director stated in a press release.
Sears will nonetheless have a presence in Illinois. There are 11 Sears Hometown Shops within the state, working primarily in small cities by impartial sellers or franchisees of Transformco associates.
The shops are usually between 6,000 to eight,000 sq. toes — far smaller than Sears shops which have been every greater than 100,000 sq. toes — and promote primarily arduous items and home equipment. Transformco’s technique is to function extra shops just like the Hometown Sears.
There presently are 300 Sears and Kmart shops nonetheless open within the US, down from practically 700 in October 2018, when Sears declared chapter. At its peak, the corporate operated greater than 3,000 shops.
“I used to be stunned it wasn’t liquidated already,” stated Reshmi Basu, analyst with Debtwire and an skilled in retail bankruptcies. “Historical past reveals a [second bankruptcy] for a retailer virtually all the time leads to liquidation.”
CNN’s Chris Isidore contributed to this report.
