American Retail Shutting Down
October 18, 2008
– Comments (5)
Mervyns
The Hayward retailer said Friday that it would close its remaining 149 locations. The stores will remain open through the holiday season with liquidation sales.
Mervyns previously planned to close 26 underperforming locations. The 59-year old chain, with a California-heavy store base, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection at the end of July, but proved unable to gain any traction on its turnaround efforts.
Linens n Things
Specialty retailer Linens 'n Things, which filed for bankruptcy protection in May, plans to begin liquidation sales at its stores as early as Thursday after failing to find a buyer that wanted to operate the company.
"It's a straight going-out-of business liquidation sale," said James Schaye, president and chief executive of Hudson Capital Partners, one of the members of the investment group buying the company's assets. He expects the process for the company's approximately 371 remaining store locations will take about 11 weeks.
Just with these two chains we are probably contemplating more than 25 million square feet of retail space going dark. Imagine owning a shopping center with both a Linens n Things and a Mervyns as your tenants??? Expect a few others similar announcements in coming weeks. Anyone paying retail this Christmas????
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