Sears closing was 'slowest iceberg hit,' Merle Hay Mall owner says

Kevin Hardy , Patt Johnson | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Sears and Kmart close 63 more stores Sears Holdings is closing stores, again. The company that owns Sears and Kmart hasn't turned a profit since 2010. Sears previously said it would close 72 stores, but subsequently dropped the number to 63.

The final Sears store in Des Moines will close this fall when the embattled national retailer shutters its Merle Hay Mall location.

The company notified employees Thursday that it will close the store in mid-October, according to a statement issued by Sears Holdings.

The Sears Auto Center will close in late August. A liquidation sale will begin as early as July 26, the statement said.

"We're sad to see Sears close," said Elizabeth Holland, Merle Hay Mall owner. "It was an original anchor at Merle Hay, but we understand that times are changing. We are excited to bring new things to the mall."

Holland learned Thursday about Sears' plan to close the store, but mall officials have been anticipating the move for months, she said.

"This was the slowest iceberg hit," Holland said. "We've been talking about it for a long time."

The nearly 60-year-old Sears building will most likely be razed and a new strip mall for two or more new tenants built in its place, she said. "No (retailer) would come into the building as-is," she said.

If there are no delays — an attached auto center could present contamination issues that would need to be addressed — new retailers could open as soon as March 2020, she said.

Holland is hoping to attract new-to-Iowa stores and businesses or those that "don't have a lot of exposure" locally. She declined to mention specific companies, but said she has been in discussions with several to fill new retail space.

Merle Hay Mall is already dealing with the loss of Younkers, which is expected to close by the end of August.

Holland expects a single user to lease the soon-to-be empty Younkers store.

Sears Holdings would not disclose the number of employees affected at the Merle Hay Mall store closing, but officials said eligible team members would receive severance and be able to apply for open positions at other Sears or Kmart stores.

But no other local Sears or Kmart stores have survived the steady stream of closures from the beleaguered chain.

Sears Holdings announced in May the closure of the only remaining Kmart store in Des Moines. The company said the Kmart at 2535 Hubbell Ave. and a Sears department store in North Park Mall in Davenport would close in early September.

The Sears at Southridge Mall in Des Moines closed in August 2016.

Once Merle Hay's Sears store closes, a department store in Sioux City will be Iowa's only vestige of the once-storied chain.

Sears opened in Merle Hay Mall in late 1959, months after the open-air mall debuted on the site of the former St. Gabriel's Monastery at Merle Hay Road and Douglas Avenue.

The two-story Sears building on the mall’s north end is about 240,000 square feet. The upper level has been vacant for years after Sears' credit department moved to West Des Moines.

More: Des Moines' final Kmart is casualty in Sears' latest round of store closings

The latest closure comes at a time of upheaval across the retail industry: Big box chains are struggling against a wave of discount chains and a plethora of competition online. The bankrupt parent company of the Younkers brand announced in April plans to shutter all its stores, putting an end to a 162-year legacy for the Iowa-born department store company.

But Sears has suffered in particular, engaging in a virtually non-stop campaign of downsizing as it seeks a turnaround that has proved so far to be elusive. The round of closures announced in May were believed to represent about 8 percent of the company's roughly 899 remaining stores, according to Susquehanna International Group retail stock analyst Bill Dreher.