Good morning,
In the turbulent world of retailing, news of store closings prompts a search to check for a list of store closings.
Most of the time Delaware stores are not on the list. The lack of a sales tax is often enough to keep a store open. Often, the last stores to close, are in the First State. This did not prove to be the case with Sears Holdings, which put the long-running Prices Corner store on its closing list on Thursday, along with a Kmart in Salisbury, MD.
It had been expected that the Concord Mall Sears would be the first to go. Sears held on to the Prices Corner site, thanks to a central location that served convenient to Pike Creek,, Mill Creek, Wilmington Manor and other neighborhoods.
But over the years, the Kirkwood Highway area began to look a little tattered as auto row shrunk and the retail center of gravity shifted to the Christiana Mall area. Concord Mall also showed signs showed signs of life under new ownership.
Sears, meanwhile, struggled with decades of bungled retail efforts.
The woes of Sears have been widely chronicled and could be summed up in the decision not to locate in the Christiana Mall area. I missed a Sears store at the mall. Every once in a while, I like to check out the power tools.
Then again, a spiffier location might have only delayed the inevitable.
Stay warm. The newsletter returns on Monday. – Doug Rainey, publisher.
