Retail Roundup: Pier 1 Imports closes Bohemia store, 7 more on LI to follow

Pier 1 Imports’ eight store closings on Long Island started with a location in Bohemia on Tuesday.

On Jan. 6, the struggling home décor retailer said it would be closing up to 450 stores “to better align its business with the current operating environment.”  Fort Worth, Texas-based Pier 1 Imports Inc. operated 942 stores as of Nov. 30, the end of its third fiscal quarter.

Pier 1 has not released a list of the closing stores, nor did it respond to my emails or calls for comment.

But a Melville company, A&G Real Estate Partners, which has been hired by Pier 1 to help “with its store portfolio rationalization program and lease renegotiations,” has the list of closing stores and each store’s square footage on its website. 

The eight closing Pier 1 stores on Long Island — in Bay Shore, Bohemia, Carle Place, Commack, Huntington Station, Long Beach, New Hyde Park and Riverhead — have a combined square footage of 82,443.  The eight stores are no longer listed on Pier 1's website. 

The four Pier 1 stores on Long Island that will remain are in Freeport, Lake Grove, Massapequa Park and Rocky Point.

A&G declined to provide more details about the store closings, including when the stores will shutter, but local real estate firm representatives and store employees provided some insights.

Here is the rundown:

Carle Place: The 15,052-square-foot Pier 1 Imports opened in January 1988, said Brian Ferruggiari, spokesman for landlord AVR Realty Co. in Yonkers.  “Through consultants A&G Realty Partners, Pier One has informed us that they intend to close the store ‘as early as February 29 but not later than April 30,’” Ferruggiari said.  The store is located at 216 Glen Cove Rd.

Bay Shore and Commack: The two stores are at 1871 Sunrise Hwy. in the Market at Bay Shore and 118 Veterans Memorial Hwy. in Veterans Memorial Plaza, respectively.  The Bay Shore location is 9,000 square feet and opened in 1990, while the Commack store opened in 2002 and is 11,253 square feet, said Jennifer Maisch, spokeswoman for Kimco Realty Corp., the New Hyde Park firm that owns the shopping centers.  Pier 1 has not given Kimco a timeline for when the stores will close, she said.

“We have been actively marketing the space already and there is a good deal of interest on both spaces,” Maisch said.

Bohemia: Located at 5187 Sunrise Hwy. in Sayville Plaza, the 9,962-square-foot Pier 1 Imports closed Tuesday.  The store opened in 2004, said Robert Delavale, vice president and director of leasing at Garden City-based Breslin Realty, which oversees leasing for the portion of the shopping center owned by Sayville Plaza Development Co. LLC. 

It’s worth noting that the 371,619-square-foot shopping center has about 110,000 square feet of vacant space and it’s about to get more, since an approximately 100,000-square-foot Kmart will close Feb. 16.  Kmart and large, vacant spaces formerly occupied by OfficeMax, Borders Books & Music and Sports Authority are in a part of the shopping center controlled through a master lease by Kmart’s parent company, Transform Holdco LLC.

Huntington Station: The store will close in April, a store employee said.  Located at 7 E. Jericho Tpke., the location is 9,852 square feet in size.

Long Beach: Located at 214 E. Park Ave. in Park Avenue Plaza, the Pier 1 Imports is 8,529 square feet.  It opened in 1990, said Andrew P. Aberham, vice president and director of sales and leasing at Philips International in Manhattan.  Philips has not been told of the closing date, he said.

New Hyde Park: A store employee said the location likely will close in April.  The 7,746-square-foot store is in the Lake Success Shopping Center on 1454 Union Tpke.

Riverhead: The store will close in April, an employee said.  Located in Riverhead Centre at 1470 Old Country Rd., the store is 10,862 square feet.

Pier 1 Imports has been struggling for years as it loses business to online retailers and even big-box home improvement retailers, such as Home Depot and Lowe’s, said Anthony Campagna, global director of fundamental research for ISS-EVA, an equity research firm based in Manhattan.

“The brick-and-mortar stores are showrooms for people who go and buy it on Amazon,” he said.

Pier 1’s sales at stores open at least one year declined 11.4% in the third quarter that ended Nov. 30, compared with the same period in 2018, the company reported Jan. 6.  The retailer reported a net loss of $59 million and a net sales decrease of 13.3% to $358.4 million.

Retail Roundup is a column about major retail news on Long Island — store openings, closings, expansions, acquisitions, etc. — that is published online and in the Monday paper. To read more of these columns, click here. If you have news to share, please send an email to Newsday reporter Tory N. Parrish at tory.parrish@newsday.com.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.com@ToryParrish1

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.