JCPenney to Close Stores

[graphichris]

JCPenney announced today that it will reduce investment in areas of its business that no longer contribute meaningfully to the Company's financial performance. The planned reductions include closing certain underperforming store locations, the winding down its catalog and outlet operations, and streamlining its Call Center operations and Custom Decorating business.

The full-line JCPenney stores to close are located in Morrow, Ga.; West Dundee, Ill.; Des Moines, Iowa; High Point, N.C.; and Culpeper, Va.; and one JCPenney Home Store located in Duluth, Ga.

The wind down of the Company’s catalog business will occur over the course of 2011 and 2012 and includes closing its 19 catalog outlet stores. Additionally, JCPenney will be consolidating its furniture outlet business, closing one store located in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.

JCPenney will also close its Sacramento, Calif. Custom Decorating Fabrication facility, leaving one remaining facility in Statesville, N.C. Also, the Company will move from managing 525 individual, in-store custom decorating studios to supporting 300 studios in key markets.

Call Center's in Grand Rapids, Mich. and Albuquerque, NM are to be closed, consolidating all activity into its three remaining facilities in Columbus, Ohio, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.

-graphichris

[Super S]

I have noticed that JCPenney has been building new, freestanding stores in recent years. I am not sure if sales in those are better than the traditional stores, but I do wonder if, in the coming years, they will have a mass exodus toward the freestanding type. Keep in mind they moved a lot of stores out of downtown areas to malls from the 1960s all the way into the 1980s, following the trend of where customers do their shopping. The few remaining downtown JCPenney stores today tend to be located in smaller towns.

[jamcool]

JCP was the last of the big 3 dept store chains to offer a big book catalog and the last to have one...killed off by on-line sales.

[Andrew T.]

The Manitowoc, WI store just closed as well. Its onetime auto center is now the only thing of any kind left at the Mid-Cities Mall.

[tesg]

The Des Moines store is the location at Southridge Mall, a dying mall on the city's southeast side. I'm surprised they stayed there as long as they did, although that store isn't that old...they moved the downtown location there 10-15 years ago.

This will leave one mainline store in the Des Moines metro (Valley West Mall, West Des Moines), which seems a bit lean to me. We also have a JCPenney Home Store just up University from Valley West in Clive. There's also a store 30 miles north in Ames at North Grand Mall.

The new freestanding JCPenney locations that I've been to seem to be doing well. They're nice stores and always appear to have good traffic in them. I think the move to them is JCPenney's way of better competing with Kohl's.

JCPenney has always been a brand that's impressed me with their ability to evolve with the times, while many heritage brands have fallen by the wayside.