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The
erstwhile retail giant renowned for its Blue Light Specials —
featuring a flashing blue orb affixed to a pole enticing
shoppers to a flash sale — is shuttering its last full-scale
store in mainland United States.
The store, located in swank Bridgehampton, New York, on Long
Island, is slated to close Oct. 20, according to Denise Rivera,
an employee who answered the phone at the store late Monday. The
manager wasn't available, she said.
That will leave only a small Kmart store in Miami. It has a
handful of stores in Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Transformco, the company that bought the assets of Sears and
Kmart out of the bankruptcy of Sears Holdings in 2019, did not
immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
In its heyday, there were more than 2,000 Kmarts in the U.S.
Struggling to compete with Walmart’s low prices and Target’s
trendier offerings, Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
protection in early 2002 — becoming the largest U.S. retailer to
take that step — and announced it would close more than 250
stores.
A few years later, hedge fund executive Edward Lampert combined
Sears and Kmart and pledged to return them to their former
greatness. But the 2008 recession and the rising dominance of
Amazon contributed in derailing that mission. Sears filed for
Chapter 11 in 2018 and now has just a handful of stores left in
the U.S., where it once had thousands.
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