More Sears and Kmart stores will disappear from the Ohio landscape with the announcement this week that the company will close 72 stores nationwide.
The closings include Kmart stores in Streetsboro and Wooster; owner Sears Holdings said in an email to the Columbus Dispatch that the closures will take place in early September. Liquidation sales will begin June 15.
The company’s internal list of closings, obtained by the website Business Insider, noted several other Ohio stores:
• A Sears store and a Sears Auto Service center at Midway Mall in Elyria.
• Two Sears locations in Columbus, at the city’s Westland and Eastland malls.
• A Sears store in Franklin, north of Cincinnati.
The closings will bring the number of Sears stores to about 1,200, down from more than 2,000 five years ago.
The stores are being closed as part of a continuing evaluation of store productivity, Sears said, “and have accelerated the closing of unprofitable stores as previously announced.”
The Sears store at Akron’s Chapel Hill Mall was one of 180 closings announced by the company earlier this year.