Grand Forks’ Kmart is slated to close in late March 2019, parent company Sears Holdings Corp. announced Friday.
The store at Grand Cities Mall on South Washington Street is one of 80 locations across the United States that will close in the spring, according to a Sears news release. The closures will affect both Sears and Kmart stores. The move is part of the parent company’s “processes to accelerate its strategic transformation and facilitate its financial restructuring,” Sears officials said in the release.
The owner of the Grand Cities Mall owns the more-than-100,000-square-foot building, according to county records.
“The loss of such a longstanding store will impact the entire midtown community,” said Grand Cities Mall General Manager Louis Christoffer in an email to the Herald.
Kmart has served shoppers in the area for the last five-plus decades, according to Christoffer.
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Still, the mall’s operators “have confidence in our future,” he added.
Janice Kollar, who said she shops at the Grand Forks Kmart once or twice a week, was dismayed about the store’s planned closure.
“They can’t close,” she said. “If I need something, I can find it here. It’s been here forever.”
David Mitzel, who also was perusing the aisles Friday afternoon, said the closure is “a crappy deal.”
“I would hope it stays open actually,” he said. “Once they make up their mind, they make up their mind, huh?
The news didn’t come as a shock to everyone, though. Aaron Hiltner said it didn’t surprise him, given that Sears is Kmart’s parent company. In fall, it closed the Sears store at Columbia Mall .
The latest round of Kmart and Sears closures is in addition to the planned shutdown of 40 other “unprofitable” stores, which are slated to shut their doors in February 2019, according to Sears.
The company on Dec. 27 informed store associates of the closure.
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The Grand Cities Mall Kmart is the only location in North Dakota that will be part of the 80-store closure, which includes the Kmart in Rochester, Minn.
Earlier this year, Sears closed a Kmart at Devils Lake , following the closure of another store in Thief River Falls .
