Another Sears to close, leaving chain with one store on Long Island
The Sears at Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream is expected to close by about April 27. Credit: Google Map
Long Island will lose another Sears in a few months, leaving the struggling retailer with only one store in the area, in Massapequa.
The chain’s parent company, Transform Holdco LLC, will close the Sears department store and the Sears Auto Center in Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream on or close to April 27, according to a filing submitted to the state.
The Green Acres Mall store is among at least 13 Sears and seven Kmart stores that Transform is slated to close within the next three months, USA Today reported Thursday.
The closing in Valley Stream will affect 62 employees — 48 working in the Sears department store and 14 working in the auto center, according to the state filing.
Transform, based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, and Green Acres Mall’s owner, Macerich Co. of Santa Monica, California, did not respond to requests for comment.
After the store closing at Green Acres Mall, the only Sears left on Long Island will be at Sunrise Mall in Massapequa. That mall was sold in December to a Manhattan-based real estate investment trust, Urban Edge Properties, which plans to redevelop the property.
Founded in 1893, Sears, then owned by Sears, Roebuck and Co., grew to be a juggernaut among department store chains and was known for its appliance sales.
Sears merged with Kmart Holding Corp. in 2005, forming Sears Holdings Corp., which had a total of about 3,500 stores nationwide at the time.
There will be 36 Sears and 30 Kmarts left after the newest round of closings, Forbes reported.
Sears lost its dominance in the appliance arena to growing competitors, such as Home Depot and Lowe’s.
Mired in debt and losing shoppers to discount retailers, Sears Holdings closed hundreds of Sears and Kmarts for years before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2018.
Sears Holdings’ assets were purchased for $5.2 billion in 2019 by Transform, doing business as Transformco, an affiliate of former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert’s ESL Investments Inc. Transform continued to close stores.
Under the ownership of Sears Holdings or Transform, nine stores on Long Island have closed since April 2018: Sears stores in Hicksville, New Hyde Park, Garden City and Lake Grove, and Kmarts in Farmingville, West Babylon, Riverhead, Huntington and Sayville.
There is one Kmart left on Long Island, in Bridgehampton.
The reason for the closing of the Sears in Green Acres Mall is "economic," according to the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filed with the New York State Department of Labor.
Under the WARN Act, certain employers must notify workers and the state in advance of mass layoffs or work site closings.
The Sears in Green Acres Mall was 149,000 square feet when it opened on Oct. 3, 1983.
It was the retailer’s fourth "store of the future," Newsday reported the day the store opened.
"The ‘store of the future’ is the mass merchandiser’s somewhat belated move to the store-within-a-store concept adopted by department stores. The signature lines — Cheryl Tiegs, Evonne Goolagong — are housed in their own shops, and related apparel are grouped by lifestyles," Newsday reported.
Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.
