Sears at Smith Haven Mall closing
The Sears at Smith Haven Mall will close May 6 or during a 14-day period starting on that date, according to the WARN notice. Credit: Google Maps
Sears at Smith Haven Mall will close in May after 50 years at the Lake Grove property.
The closing will take 77 jobs with it, according to a state filing.
The Lake Grove department store is among three Sears and a Kmart in New York State that parent company Transform Holdco LLC will shutter as it continues the store closings that have plagued Sears and Kmart for years.
The three closing Sears stores, which all have auto centers, include locations in Horseheads in Chemung County and Poughkeepsie. The shuttering Kmart is at Penn Station in Manhattan.
A total of 348 employees will be affected by the four store closings, which are occurring for “economic” reasons, according to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act filings, or WARNs, submitted to the New York State Department of Labor on Feb. 4 and Feb. 6. The notices were posted on the state agency’s website Monday and Wednesday.
Under the WARN Act, certain employers must notify workers and the state in advance of mass layoffs or work site closings.
The Sears at Smith Haven Mall will close May 6 or during a 14-day period starting on that date, according to the WARN.
The other three stores will close May 4 or during a 14-day period starting on that date.
The four store closings announced this month are separate from the 96 Sears and Kmart closings that Transform said in November would take place by this month.
The Sears in Smith Haven Mall is an anchor store that opened Feb. 16, 1970, according to a Newsday article published Feb. 12. that year. The mall is owned by Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based Transform also did not respond to a request for comment.
Mired in debt and losing shoppers to discount retailers, Sears and Kmart’s former parent company, Sears Holdings Corp., closed hundreds of stores for years before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October 2018.
Transform, doing business as Transformco, has continued to close stores since buying Sears Holdings’ assets for $5.2 billion in February 2019.
In November, Transform announced that it would close 96 Kmart and Sears stores across the country by February, including a Kmart in Sayville with a Bohemia address, which would leave Transform with 182 Sears and Kmart stores.
In January 2010, Sears Holdings had 1,292 Kmart stores, 35 Kmart supercenters and 848 Sears that were full-line mall stores, according to an annual report.
The closing of the Sears in Lake Grove will leave Long Island with two of the department stores — at Westfield Sunrise Mall in Massapequa and Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream.
Long Island will be left with one Kmart, in Bridgehampton, when the Sayville store closes Sunday.
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.
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