Sears — a pillar of the North Carolina retail sector for decades — is about to exit the state for good with the announced closing of its Friendly Center store in Greensboro.
CBL Properties, the operator of Friendly Center and Hanes Mall in Winston-Salem, said in a statement that the closure “is the first step of an active redevelopment plan, which provides CBL the opportunity to redevelop prime real estate at one of our top-performing properties.
“Once plans are finalized, we’ll be excited to share more specific details.”
There was a time when Sears was synonymous with the retail experience. Clothes. Appliances. Hardware. Toys. It was all under one roof — and long before the term “big-box store” had ever been coined.
But a number of competitors began to chip away at the company’s dominance.
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The iconic retailer’s struggles have lasted over a decade and been well documented. The last time the company turned a profit was in 2010. Since then, store closings at local malls across America have become commonplace.
The Sears location at Hanes Mall closed in January 2019, thus ending a relationship that went back 43 years.
In Greensboro, the presence of Sears carried sort of a landmark quality, branding Friendly Center as a mecca for consumers. In recent years, as the company’s reputation diminished, so did the weight of that branding.
Now, all that’s left is for the store to be picked clean by people looking for a sweet deal.
“This truly is an extraordinary buying opportunity,” said Arnold Jacobs, executive managing director for Tiger Capital. “These 8,000 to 10,000 square-foot stores are filled with in-demand tools. The discounts are as high as 40%, even higher in the case of floor models and scratch-and-dent items.”
The Sears declaration of bankruptcy by what was once America’s largest retailer “is the irony of ironies,” said Roger Beahm, a marketing professor at Wake Forest University’s School of Business. “The company that once began as a remote-order and direct-delivery business has now all but lost the battle for survival to a retail environment that is, once again, becoming remote-order and direct-delivery.
“The closure should not negatively impact Friendly Center. The store has essentially appeared closed since the pandemic. Now reality is simply catching up to perception.”
Beahm said the Friendly Center store seems to appear at odds with the shopping center’s overall retail atmosphere of a lifestyle center.
“Consumers want more specialized product selection combined with a shorter time commitment for shopping,” Beahm said. “It’s why most enclosed malls have declined or shuttered, and why online shopping continues to take business away from brick-and-mortar stores in general.”
Keith Debbage, a UNCG professor who specializes in regional economic development issues, said the Sears closing was unfortunately predictable.
“It seems a long time coming,” Debbage said. “Many years ago, Whole Foods moved into part of the Sears building and occupied a significant part of the floorspace. Although it is a lot of floorspace, I do not expect the empty portion to be difficult to fill, but it might not necessarily be a retail use.”