Sears To Close at Lakeforest Mall by End of Year

Liquidation sales to occur this month

VIA JLL PROPERTY LEASING WEBSITE

Sears will close at Lakeforest Mall in Gaithersburg by mid-December, the department store chain announced Aug. 31, as part of a planned series of closings of Sears and Kmart locations across the country.

The news of the closings was first reported by USA Today.

Sears Holdings Corporation, which owns Sears and Kmart, announced in October 2018 that it was filing for bankruptcy and announced the planned closing of 80 stores at the time, which did not include the Gaithersburg location. However, last week’s release included 100 additional stores that would close by December.

Larry Costello, the public relations director for Sears and Kmart, wrote in an email Tuesday that the decision to close the Gaithersburg store was “a difficult but necessary decision” and that liquidation sales would begin in the middle of this month.

“We encourage customers to continue shopping on sears.com and kmart.com for all their product needs,” he wrote.

Costello declined to comment on how many the store employs and whether workers would be laid off as a result of the closing.

South Carolina-based WRS Inc. bought the Lakeforest Mall property last month with the goal of redeveloping the property. The Gaithersburg City Council was scheduled to discuss a master plan for the site at its meeting Tuesday night.

With Sears’ departure and the planned closing of Lord & Taylor this month, Lakeforest Mall will have just one anchor store, Macy’s, remaining by the end of the year. Its other anchor, J.C. Penney, closed on July 5.

Dan Schere can be reached at Daniel.schere@bethesdamagazine.com