Final metro New York-New Jersey Sears store is closing
The last Sears store location in the New York/New Jersey metro market is preparing to close its doors for good.
While a final date has yet to be announced by the store, the location is currently hosting a sale with goods being marked down by as much 70% off. This includes air conditioners, appliances, tools, tool storage, and clothing among other goods.
The Sears Jersey City #1044’s Facebook page continues to post images of sales items, enticing customers to make one last shopping run. Located at 50 Mall Drive West in Jersey City, New Jersey the store is just 3.7 miles from Manhattan’s Financial District via the Holland Tunnel.
After the closing of this store, Sears will have just 12 locations remaining in the United States and Puerto Rico along with 6 Kmart stores. The remaining Kmart stores include three locations in the Virgin Islands and one store in Guam.
According to Statista, Sears had over 4,000 stores at its peak in 2011.
Calls to the Jersey City store inquiring about the actual closing date were not returned.
Following the closing of the Jersey City outlet, the closest Sears location to the New York market is in Braintree, Massachusetts.
Sears continues to be owned by Transformco, which was formed in 2019 after the retailer declared bankruptcy in October 2018.
Owned by hedge fund operator Eddie Lampert, who also held the Kmart chain, Transformco acquired Sears Holdings for $5.2 billion in 2019. The deal resulted in keeping more than 400 Sears and Kmart stores open. At the time, Sears had already liquidated hundreds of locations. And the liquidations continued.
Now called Transformco SR Brands LLC, the company is owned by ESL Investments; a privately-held hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut and managed by Lampert.
In 2017, Sears sold the Craftsman tool brand to Stanley-Black and Decker in a $900 million deal. About two years later, it sold its Diehard auto battery and auto parts brand to Advance Auto Parts for $200 million cash.
While Sears was once the kingpin of retail, it was unable to keep up with rising retail outlets such as Walmart, Target, and the e-commerce age dominated by Amazon.
But in recent months, Sears has actually opened two stores in Burbank, California and Union Gap, Washington.
In this author’s region, the final Kmart location in Poughkeepsie, New York was reduced to rubble last year. What remains is a massive closed-off, empty parking lot and vacated strip mall.
The area’s final Sears location in the Galleria mall is a shuttered ghost store, which closed in 2020 and was never repurposed.
