Oshman Sporting Goods Co., based in Houston, said today the company is concentrating its efforts on building big stores and is moving away from the old concept of smaller individual stores.
"What's happening in Hawaii is no different from what's happening on the mainland," Lyndsay Rice, Oshman executive vice president, said today.
Rice said the company is interested in opening a megastore in Hawaii but has not found a location.
Oshman bought Honsport in 1978. The business has one store in the Windward Mall, another in Pearlridge Center, one in Hilo and one on Maui.
Hawaii has seen an influx of big-store retailers, such as Sports Authority's two Oahu outlets, in the past few years.
Rice said the big Oshman stores are generally bigger than the Sports Authority outlets, averaging 65,000 square feet.
(Sports Authority's Ward Avenue store is 43,000 square feet and the Waikele store is 50,000 square feet. The company plans a 32,000 square foot outlet on Maui.)
Oshman's new concept in sports retailing is "experiential merchandising" where stores include indoor tennis courts, computerized golf simulators, archery ranges and so on, Rice said.
The smaller existing Honsport stores don't fit that concept, Rice said. The Hawaii shutdown is part of Oshman's national policy, he said.
Honsport was founded in 1920 as Honolulu Sporting Goods Co. and the original owners were World War I veterans.
Its first location was at the corner of Fort Street and Hotel Street in downtown Honolulu. Later it moved that store to Ala Moana Center but has since closed their in favor of the Windward and Pearlridge locations.