Sears Holdings main store in Chicago's business district is shuttering its doors in April The Chicago Tribune reported. The store's liquidation process begins Sunday."The store has lost millions of dollars since opening and we can no longer continue to support the store's operating losses," a spokesman told The Chicago Tribune in an e-mail.
The store's one hundred sixty employees are expected to get severance packages, and an opportunity to get jobs at other locations throughout the store's locations The Tribune reported. "We don't make decisions to close stores lightly, and we know just how hard these decisions are on our loyal associates." Edward Lampert CEO at Sears Holdings said in a letter posted on company's website The Tribune reported.
"But we've also carefully studied where other retailers went wrong and how they failed to adapt to changes," Lampert said in the letter The Tribune reported.Chicago Public Schools will utilize the property with its headquarters in order to $60 million throughout the next 15 years The Tribune reported.
The school system is expected to takeover the buildings' basement, portions of the first and ninth floors, and all of the second and third floors The Tribune reported."State Street is performing at the highest level that it has in decades," Michael Edwards executive director at the Chicago Loop Alliance told The Tribune.
"Retail volume, retail sales, everything's up... There's real demand for retail space on State Street and those corners are even more valuable than the mid-blocks," Edwards told The Tribune.
The location unlocked its doors in 2011 The Tribune reported."Hopefully this company stabilizes and it can reach the long term strategy (Lampert) put in place," Neil Stern, senior partner at Chicago-based retail consulting firm McMillan Doolittle told The Tribune. "But as you go though one disappointing year after another and one bad Christmas after another you begin to lose hope," Stern told The Tribune.
