Target to close a Commack store, affecting 140 workers 

A Target store in Commack is one of six underperforming locations in five states that the retailer will close in February, the company said Monday.

The stores, including the location referred to as Commack South at 4 Henry St., will close Feb. 2, the last day of Target’s fiscal 2018 year, Minneapolis-based Target Corp. said.

About 140 full- and part-time employees work at the store, which has been open since 2002.

“The decision to close a store is always difficult . . . Typically, a store is closed only after it’s shown several years of decreasing profitability,” Target spokeswoman Jenna Reck said.

Of the other five closing stores, two are in Chicago and three are in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Memphis and Milwaukee.

Target closes a small number of underperforming stores annually after “rigorous evaluation,” Reck said.

In fiscal 2017 the retailer closed 13 stores, she said.

Target leases the 143,000-square-foot Commack South store building, which includes a CVS and Starbucks. 

Located in the Commack South Shopping Center, the closing Target has faced more competition over the years as more retailers opened nearby, especially those that had full grocery offerings while Target did not, said John Baker, vice president of construction and development at Commack-based Cosentino Realty Group, which owns the shopping center.

A ShopRite grocery store opened in the shopping center in 2011. A home goods seller, HomeSense, opened beside Target in May.

Other stores in the center include Costco, Marshalls and HomeGoods.

In 2007, a Walmart opened in Crooked Hill Commons, a shopping center that is also owned by Cosentino Realty Group, and the store is 0.3 miles away from the closing Target.

“It’s just part of the evolution of real estate. Things come and go,” Baker said.

Cosentino Realty Group is in talks with several potential tenants about leasing the Target space, he said.

Target employees in the Commack South store were informed of the closing Monday, and eligible workers will be given the option to transfer to another location in the chain, Reck said.

The two Targets closest to the closing store are at 98 Veterans Memorial Hwy. in Commack, which is 3.5 miles away, and at 160 N. Research Place in Central Islip, which is 7.7 miles away.

 Target has 18 stores on Long Island.

A new small-format Target, 54,300 square feet, will open on Nov. 11 in Selden in Independence Plaza, near the intersection of Middle Country and Boyle Road, as planned, the retailer said.

Target had 1,835 stores nationwide as of Aug. 4, according to its second-quarter earnings report.

It plans to have about 30 new stores opened by the end of 2018.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

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.