Sears Holdings Corp. seeks bankruptcy protection

News

Sears Holdings Corp., the parent company of Sears and Kmart, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Monday.

Two Kmart and six Sears stores are closing in Florida. The closest is in Ocala. Sears has 687 stores and about 68,000 employees.

The closings are in addition to the 46 stores the company said in August would close by November. None of those stores are in Northeast Florida.

“The Chapter 11 process will give Holdings the flexibility to strengthen its balance sheet, enabling the Company to accelerate its strategic transformation, continue right sizing its operating model, and return to profitability,” Sears Holdings Chairman Edward S. Lampert said in a news release.

“Our goal is to achieve a comprehensive restructuring as efficiently as possible, working closely with our creditors and other debtholders, and be better positioned to execute on our strategy and key priorities," he said.

Sears operates two large retail stores in Northeast Florida at The Avenues and Orange Park malls. Both have auto centers.

The company also operates two Sears Outlet stores, on San Jose Boulevard and St. Johns Bluff Road. Sears also has Hometown stores in Fernandina Beach and St. Augustine.

There are no Kmart stores remaining in Northeast Florida.

Sears owns two buildings in Jacksonville, records show.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. owns the closed department store building in Regency Square Mall. That 196,214-square-foot store closed July 17, 2016, after about 36 years in business.

And Terminal Freight Handling Co., a Sears, Roebuck company, owns a retail replenishment center at 1 Imeson Park Blvd. in Imeson International Industrial Park in North Jacksonville. Property records show that 734,544-square-foot warehouse was built in 1990.

Sears also developed a 1.7 million-square-foot office-warehouse in Imeson in 1974 as a catalog sales distribution center, but sold it to investors in 1994.

Sears, Roebuck & Co. also owns its department store at the Orange Park Mall.

According to The Wall Street Journal, lenders agreed to provide between roughly $500 million and $600 million in bankruptcy financing.

Sears said that Lampert has stepped down from his role as CEO but will remain chairman of the board. The newly created Office of the CEO will manage the company's day-to-day operations.

"As we look toward the holiday season, Sears and Kmart stores remain open for business and our dedicated associates look forward to serving our members and customers,” Lampert said. “We thank our vendors for their continuing support through the upcoming season and beyond. We also thank our associates for their hard work and commitment to providing millions of Americans with value and convenience."

Sears in Jacksonville history

In 2009, Associate Editor Max Marbut wrote about Sears in his "50 Years Ago This Week" column:

On July 29, 1959, Roebuck & Company opened its largest retail store in the world Downtown described as “a multimillion dollar salute to the future of Jacksonville as the gateway to one of the fastest-growing states in the Union.”

Years of planning and more than 14 months of construction had gone into the store which was the latest addition to “a string of imposing structures fast making the city’s Downtown waterfront one of the most impressive in the nation.”

Company executives and local leaders hailed the building as a monument to Jacksonville’s progress, a victory for urban renewal and a symbol of a great company’s faith in the future of the area.

Roy G. Harrell, manager of the new store, presided at the speaker’s table at the dinner and said the store was the “pinnacle, the finest effort by Sears to put up a store any place, in any city, any state or country anywhere.”

Among the many persons to whom Harrell gave credit to have the new store built here was Mayor Haydon Burns who would cut the ribbon on opening day.

Burns said, “With the opening of the store we can write ‘finish’ on another chapter in the Jacksonville story. The largest Sears store in the world is something we can truly boast of.”

Burns added it was “significant that Sears had chosen the Downtown location, was not attracted to suburbia but rather had invested its faith and dollars in the heart of the city.”

One out of every 10 persons in Duval County went to see the store the day it opened according to estimates by Sears officials.

Crowds on opening day were estimated at 40,000 and many of those who didn’t go in the store said they were waiting until the crowds thinned out.

A police officer at the corner of Bay and Julia streets yelled at a motorist, “Stop looking at the building and look at the light.” It was also reported that “an attractive matron” stopped another woman on the third floor because she had to tell someone, “Now Atlanta has nothing on Jacksonville.”