[Southsider2k12]

This makes me wonder about the potential of losing one of the anchors at Marquette Mall... Any idea when their lease is up?

http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/20...news/576227.txt

department store; 73 people stand to lose jobs
By KEVIN ALLEN - H-P Business Writer
Published: Thursday, June 11, 2009 12:59 PM EDT
BENTON TOWNSHIP - The Orchards Mall will lose one of its anchors and more than 70 people will lose jobs when Sears closes its Benton Township store in September, ending an 80-year presence in the Twin Cities.

The store's tentative closing date is Sept. 18, Sears Holding Corp. spokeswoman Kim Freely said in a phone interview. Liquidation sales will begin June 21, she said.

Freely said company representatives went to the store Tuesday to tell employees about the planned closure. Approximately 73 people work at the store, she said.

Sears is closing the store because its lease expired, Freely said. She would not provide further details.

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The Orchards Mall does not own the space where Sears is located and has not received official notice from Sears that it intends to close the store, according to a statement from the mall's owner, Security National Properties.

Sears, which is based in Hoffman Estates, Ill., announced in February that it planned to close 24 of its stores.

"For those stores that have leases expiring, we have chosen in some cases not to renew the leases, thereby allowing us to convert the inventory to cash, relieve the loss on our income statement and eliminate the lease expense from our debt calculations and obligations," Sears Chairman Edward Lampert said in a letter to shareholders in February.

"Our approach has been to continue to operate money-losing stores in the past so long as we believed that we could restore those stores to profitability, and that the level of losses could be recovered upon return to profitability," he explained in the letter. "The higher the loss, the greater the probability that the store would one day be closed."

Companywide, Sears store sales were down nearly 12 percent during the first quarter of 2009, according to the company's first-quarter earnings report.

Sears is one of three department store anchors at the Orchards Mall. The other two are Elder-Beerman and JC Penney.

The store has had a presence in the Benton Harbor-St. Joseph area for 80 years.

The company's first area store opened in 1929 at the corner of Colfax Avenue and West Main Street in downtown Benton Harbor.

In 1956, the store moved to 640 W. Main St., the present site of LeValley auto dealership's finance center.

Sears opened its store at the Orchards Mall in September 1979 - exactly 30 years to the month of the store's planned closing.

Workers who lose their jobs at the Benton Township store will be notified of openings at other Sears and Kmart stores, Freely said.

The nearest locations are in Kalamazoo, South Bend and Michigan City.