Metro Detroit-Windsor Kmart / Sears Closings?

[fastcarsandfreedom]

Any speculation locally?

Sears Will Close 120 Stores as Sales Fall

Sears Holdings Corp. said Tuesday it will close 100 to 120 of its full-line Sears and Kmart stores as it struggles to attract shoppers. Sales for the fourth quarter are off a disappointing 5.2 percent compared with last year.

[MidTownMs]

Locally? As far as I know there are no Sears or Kmart in Detroit. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

[bartock]

Locally? As far as I know there are no Sears or Kmart in Detroit. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

Detroit-Windsor area has about 5.5 million people. This site is about that. If you want to limit it to an area just less than 15% of that population, and shrinking, that doesn't seem to fit with this site's intention of what "local" is.

Either way, there is a Super KMart on the NW side of Detroit.

[DetroitPlanner]

Detroit is a market that is tied to K-mart/Sears through its long history with Kresge. It is seen as one of its strongest markets. Sears has not closed a lot of stores here recently. I would think that the last closure was Highland Park in the region, and before that the outlet stores in Grosse Pointe and on Plymouth. These have been gone for at least 20 years.

A chief competitor, Walmart, while it has made some inroads into the market does not dominate areound here. The local culture sides more with the anti-Walmart crowd, preferring Target [[whose roots were with Dayton-Hudson) and K-mart. 100-125 stores is not a huge number of stores, though they may hit rural areas that are serviced by both K-mart and Walmart. These would include Cheboygan, West Branch, and Houghton Lake.

[MidTownMs]

Detroit-Windsor area has about 5.5 million people. This site is about that. If you want to limit it to an area just less than 15% of that population, and shrinking, that doesn't seem to fit with this site's intention of what "local" is.

Either way, there is a Super KMart on the NW side of Detroit.

I guess we all don't have the same definition of local. Mine is within the city limits. Is that Kmart the one on the Detroit side of Eight mile and Telegraph?

[fastcarsandfreedom]

MidTownMs you are absolutely entitled to your own definition of "local", keeping in mind that this site definies it broadly as the Greater Detroit/Greater Windsor "Metropolis"...meaning we would even include the Windsor Sears locations. That being said, the Super Kmart at 19990 Telegraph is within the proper City of Detroit.

[animatedmartian]

Unrelated, but semi-related: Payless recently closed 400 stores nationwide and two of them were the Payless at Bel-Air and the one on Livernois and 7 Mile. Not sure of any others within the city, but the one on 9 Mile and Kelly closed as well. The two Detroit locations though, I question the reasoning because those two seemed like pretty good spots.

As far as Sears goes, they're all mostly major anchors to the local malls [[Oakland, Eastland, Macomb, etc)...if any of those were to close, that'd be really really really ugly for the local communities. I can't imagine something as big or as long standing would be able to take their place.

[313WX]

For starters...

*Either the Sears at Macomb Mall or Eastland Center, if not both.
*Kmart on 9 Mile and Harper

[Danny]

Hopefully that Sears would not close the Super K in Detroit or Madison Heights or Roseville.

Sears can close a K-mart in Warren but the leave the Garden City one open.

Sears can close theirs stores in Livonia, Lincoln Park, but the leave the Oakland, Macomb and Fairlane, Westland and Eastland mall open.

[mtburb]

I live not far from the Kmart at Fort Street and Pennsylvania, nearest Sears is at Dix and Southfield [[this particular location is where I bought a Motown album collection for my Christmas shopping). I would hate to see both close. I felt the same way back in 2008 when they wanted to close the Meijer across the street from Kmart.

[313WX]

Unrelated, but semi-related: Payless recently closed 400 stores nationwide and two of them were the Payless at Bel-Air and the one on Livernois and 7 Mile. Not sure of any others within the city, but the one on 9 Mile and Kelly closed as well. The two Detroit locations though, I question the reasoning because those two seemed like pretty good spots.

As far as Sears goes, they're all mostly major anchors to the local malls [[Oakland, Eastland, Macomb, etc)...if any of those were to close, that'd be really really really ugly for the local communities. I can't imagine something as big or as long standing would be able to take their place.

'

Both Payless stores you reference were empty at any time of the day. There is a Payless on Gratiot and Gunston however.

The Sears at Macomb Mall I know for sure is a ghost town. And that'll be the final nail in the coffin for Macomb Mall once Sears is gone.

As for the Kmart on 9 Mile and Harper, it's mighty redundant when there's the huge Kmart Super Center on Frazho and Gratiot.

I'm not sure what to think of the 8 Mile and Telegraph Super Kmart.

[fastcarsandfreedom]

Sears Eastland is relatively new, having occupied the former JCP location after they bailed out for Gratiot & 13.

Macomb Sears has a huge footprint - possibly a strike against it.

9 & Harper Kmart is in rough shape, despite getting the new signage the interior is basically unchanged from original and the merchandise is generally roughed up...not sure if this is an under-performing store that's being "propped up" or not...pretty weak effort at being "propped up" if that's the case!

[bartock]

I guess we all don't have the same definition of local. Mine is within the city limits. Is that Kmart the one on the Detroit side of Eight mile and Telegraph?

That's the one.

[wilderness]

Sears can close a K-mart in Warren but the leave the Garden City one open.

The Garden City location will likely never close. It was the very first Kmart-ever.

[bartock]

For starters...

*Either the Sears at Macomb Mall or Eastland Center, if not both.
*Kmart on 9 Mile and Harper

Agree about the Kmart onf 9 mile and Harper. With the bowling alley just north of 9 mile and Harper being recently demolished, there would be a lot of available real estate over there.

I hope the Eastland Center one does not go. It is newer, and always seems steady when I'm over there. Macomb Mall...eh, aside from the Kohls attached to the back, is the mall that busy?

[rex]

Pontiac Mall. Final nail in the coffin????

[Ray1936]

Don't matter to me. I don't shop at either. Feel bad for anyone about to lost their job, though.

[Scottathew]

The Garden City location will likely never close. It was the very first Kmart-ever.

I worked at what I thought was a closure-immune K-Mart, the Troy one. It was the closest store to the former headquarters. It closed years ago, still vacant at 15 and Livernois.

I suspect my local K-Mart will close at 10\Dequindre. It's a miserable shit-hole. The rebranded it as an "Sears Essentials" store, but have since made it back into a K-Mart.

What a failure of a company. What a huge mistake to dual-brand K-Mart stores as "Sears Essentials".

[East Detroit]

Should it matter to people from Detroit? [[Metro Detroit if we must for the dividing types)

Kresge Foundation.... good luck going to any cultural establishment and not seeing that name.

Walmart Foundation or Toyota Foundation... good luck finding that name.

But hey, its everyone for themselves. Lets take our taxpayer subsidized degrees and retirement funds and move out of State. Yay, me!

[DetroitPlanner]

Pontiac Mall. Final nail in the coffin????

I doubt it. Nothing like it anywhere close-by. Closest place I can think of is a strip of Big Boxes along Brown, just past Great Lakes Mall. My first visit to Pontiac Mall in the 1970's the Sears was a hike from the Hudson's; one where is made sense to get in your car in drive. I don't think much was ever opened in the final phase of the mall expansion that connected it to the original mall.

[mtburb]

I worked at what I thought was a closure-immune K-Mart, the Troy one. It was the closest store to the former headquarters. It closed years ago, still vacant at 15 and Livernois.

I suspect my local K-Mart will close at 10\Dequindre. It's a miserable shit-hole. The rebranded it as an "Sears Essentials" store, but have since made it back into a K-Mart.

About the first sentence: That store would've closed in September 2009 as there are "store closing" banners: http://g.co/maps/exbfa

And about the second one: They almost did the same thing to the Kmart at West and Allen Roads in Woodhaven about six years ago.

[401don]

I thought Sears would put more effort into merchandising at K-Mart. The stores are so junky compared to Walmart or Target. It's like they feel they need a little electronics, hardware, seasonal stuff, etc. but everything is just a half-assed effort with no purpose to selection or pricing. I'm basing this mostly on the Madison Heights location and all the Canadian locations [[before they packed up in Canada.)
We have a similar situation with the Canadian chain called Zellers. Fortunately Target has bought them out and takes over in 2013.

[mtburb]

I thought Sears would put more effort into merchandising at K-Mart. The stores are so junky compared to Walmart or Target.

At the Southgate location I mentioned earlier in this thread, they have no cafeteria! Does that count as well?

[douglasm]

I saw one analysis that appeared to be spot on. It said that K-Mart spent little money updating their stores, and they became less attractive to shoppers.

I agree with that. We had a K-Mart out here that survived the first round of closures, but made little progress in gaining sales, one of the reasons being that compared to Wal-Mart, ShopCo and Target [[it's 3 biggest competetors in this market), it looks run down and dingy. That affected it's image seriously; I've been in other K-Marts since the local one closed [[finally), and they too are seriously in need of an updating.

[lpg]

Sears in Lincoln Park sits in a nearly empty mall.