Liberty House closing
five more stores

It also will turn a Home Outlet
into a Penthouse store

Star-Bulletin staff

Liberty House plans to turn its 25,000 square-foot Home Outlet at Waikele Center into a Penthouse discount store next month.

The company will close five smaller Penthouse stores on Aug. 9 and begin converting the Waikele store on Aug. 7, Liberty House announced yesterday.

Scheduled closures are at Keauhou Shopping Village in Kona; Prince Kuhio Plaza in Hilo; Kukui Grove Center on Kauai; and Windward Mall and Pearlridge Center. Some 43 employees will be offered positions at other Liberty House stores, the company said.

Remaining open are Penthouse stores downtown, in Kailua, and on Guam.

Liberty House President John Monahan said Penthouse stores will return to their "roots" as outlets for discounted merchandise from Liberty House stores.

"We had gotten away from clearance merchandise as our core Penthouse product and were selling a great deal of apparel that was specially purchased for the Penthouse," he said. "We are no longer buying special purchase goods, and will mark down those items to clear them from our inventories."

With the new closures, Liberty House will have closed 16 stores -- mostly specialty shops -- since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 19. The closures are part of a company plan to cut costs and focus resources on its department stores.

The Penthouse stores were originally set up as a mechanism to make room for new merchandise in the company's department stores.