All Over Albany

The Colonie Center Sears is closing

The Sears at Colonie Center is closing this mid-September, the company said in a statement Thursday. the store will remain open until then and a liquidation sale will start June 30. Eligible employees will receive severance and be given the opportunity to apply at other Sears and KMart stores. The full statement is below.

The Colonie Center closure was one of the 20 this week. A Sears spokesman says the stores at the Wilton Mall and Aviation Mall in Queensbury will continue operating. [Business Insider]

The move isn't surprising.

Sears has been struggling for years. This past January it announced that a bunch of Sears and KMart (same company) locations would be closing. To paraphrase a Moody's statement that accompanied a Sears rating downgrade at the beginning of this year, the company's financial fortunes have been in free fall and there's significant doubt its efforts to sell off its valuable pieces on the way down will keep it from crashing.

Aside from being one of American retail's most iconic brands, the closure of Sears at Colonie Center is notable because Sears was an integral part of the mall's founding. The "INclosed" project was built by a subsidiary of the Sears Roebuck and Co. And Sears continued to own its end of the mall for decades after. You might remember that fact came up when the Colonie Center Whole Foods, which was carved out of the Sears square footage, was announced. [Daily Gazette archive]

Sears sold off many of its real estate holdings -- including the southwest chunk of the Colonie Center property -- to an entity called Seritage in 2015. Seritage still owns it today. (The property is assessed at $11.5 million, according to the Albany County parcel viewer.) And its website notes of its arrangement with Sears: "The master lease provides the Company with the right to recapture certain space from Sears Holdings at each property for retenanting or redevelopment purposes." [Forbes]

Sears Colonie Center closure statement

We can confirm that we are making the difficult, but necessary decision to close the Sears store at 1425 Central Avenue in Albany. The store will close to the public in mid-September. Until then, the store will remain open for customers. The store will begin its liquidation sale on June 30. We have been strategically and aggressively evaluating our store space and productivity, and have accelerated the closing of unprofitable stores as previously announced. We often hear from our members who are disappointed when we close a store, but our Shop Your Way membership platform, websites and mobile apps allow us to maintain these valued relationships long after a store closes its doors. As a result, we hope to retain a portion of the sales previously associated with this store by maintaining our relationships with the members who shopped this location. Our members and customers can also shop at our other Sears locations, which are listed at http://www.sears.com/stores.html. The number of associates is not publicly available. Those associates that are eligible will receive severance and have the opportunity to apply for open positions at area Sears or Kmart stores.