By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
By this summer, south Pierce County residents won’t be able to shop at the Kmart in Spanaway any more.
The store at 17911 Pacific Ave. S. in the Pacific Commons commercial center is closing as part of a nationwide effort by its parent company to cut costs and strengthen its overall business by eliminating poorer-performing outlets.
A liquidation sale started this month at the Spanaway store, which is expected to close in July. Merchandise discounts range from 10 to 30 percent.
Sears Holdings, which owns Kmart and Sears stores, announced in January that it would close 150 stores this year – 108 Kmarts and 42 bearing the Sears name. The Spanaway Kmart was on a later list of additional closures, making it the third Kmart in Pierce County to be shut down. One on Sixth Avenue in Tacoma went through a liquidation sale earlier this year, and the store in Puyallup closed in the fall of 2013.
In a statement, Sears Holdings said closures are “a difficult but necessary step as we take actions to strengthen the company’s operations. Many of these stores have struggled with their financial performance for years, and we have kept them open to maintain local jobs and in the hope they would turn around. We have to make tough decisions and will continue to do do so, which will give our better-performing stores a chance at success.”
Eligible employees at closing stores will receive severance and can apply for jobs at remaining Kmart and Sears stores, company officials said.
Online comments by shoppers about the Spanaway store closure included one by an Auburn man who called it a “decent Kmart up until the last year or so, when Kmart's financial issues came to a peak. Last year or so, shelves are often bare of product. No new books, minimal deliveries. Au revoir, ‘Kmarche’ of Spanaway. You served me well.”
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