In-depth coverage
The Springfield News-Sun provides unmatched coverage of jobs and the economy in Clark and Champaign counties. For this story, the paper spoke to local economic development officials, county leaders and local shoppers to explain how Kmart’s decision to close will affect local residents.
The financial struggles of one of the country’s most prominent retail companies will cost Springfield 68 jobs just before the holidays.
The Kmart at 1476 Upper Valley Pike will shut its doors permanently in early December, a spokesman said Wednesday, leaving no Kmart stores in Springfield. The retailer will also close another store at the same time in Fairborn that employs 66 people.
Eligible employees will receive severance and be able to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores, Howard Riefs, corporate communications director for Sears Holdings, said in an email. Sears Holdings is the parent company of Sears and Kmart.
Both stores will begin liquidation sales this Sunday, Riefs said.
“Store closures are part of a series of actions we’re taking to reduce ongoing expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model,” he said. “These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail – at the store, online and in the home.”
The troubles facing the Springfield store are company-wide, Clark County Commissioner John Detrick said.
“All over the country (at) Kmart and Sears, it’s not business as usual,” Detrick said. “I hate to see retail go, but I realize they have to show a good bottom line.”
No other Kmart stores in the region are targeted for closing, Riefs said. Kmart closed its Derr Road store in Springfield in 2012, eliminating about 50 jobs there. The Xenia store earlier this year and a Trotwood store shut down in early 2013.
The Springfield and Fairborn Kmart closings appear to be part of a larger wave that includes five Michigan stores, two Indiana stores and at least one in Wisconsin.
Sears Holdings said last month that its second-quarter loss worsened due to weak sales. Kmart’s parent company lost $573 million for the quarter ending Aug. 2. Kmart’s same-store sales were down 1.7 percent for the quarter.
Sears Holdings’ CEO Edward S. Lampert, in an Aug. 21 statement, called the company’s second-quarter earnings unacceptable and said, “we are taking steps to address our performance on several levels.”
Despite the closure of the Springfield store, Detrick said he’s optimistic that Clark County has seen some recent job growth as the economy has slowly recovered, which could eventually result in more investment on Upper Valley Pike.
Kmart likely needed to make some tough decisions and that corridor has struggled in recent years, said Horton Hobbs, vice president of economic development at the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s disappointing when you lose a major retailer in the community such as Kmart,” he said. “However, we’ll work with the ownership of that shopping center and make sure we’re helping to market that site for new investment.”
Much of the retail business has shifted to Bechtle Avenue, but Hobbs said it’s difficult to tell exactly how that has affected Upper Valley Pike. The fact that the corridor has struggled recently isn’t the reason for Kmart’s problems, he said.
“I don’t think this is the end of that corridor by any means,” Hobbs said. “There are certainly some great opportunities to invest in the corridor itself, and we’ll continue to market that as an opportunity to our investors.”
The Upper Valley Mall across the street ended up in receivership after its owners defaulted on a $47 million loan this summer. It was recently taken over by Urban Retail, a firm based in Chicago.
Local residents who visited the Kmart store Wednesday morning said the closure is one more blow to that area.
“We don’t have many stores in this area as it is, so losing Kmart is just losing one more store that’s available to us,” said Cindi Bryan, of Springfield.
Barbara Spayth, also of Springfield, visits Kmart infrequently. But she’s seen shoppers head to Greene County or Columbus, where she said there are more options for retail than in Clark County.
“I hate to see them go,” Spayth said of Kmart. “We need something besides just Walmart and Meijer in town.”
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