STAR-BULLETIN / 2002 J.C. Penney's Maui store will close with its other three remaining Hawaii outlets on Jan. 10.

J.C. Penney to
close Maui store

The retailer needed to sell its space
in the Queen Kaahumanu Center
before the store could be closed

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By Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.com

The J.C. Penney store on Maui will close Jan. 10, costing 68 employees their jobs.

That is the day that the other three Penney stores in the islands will close. Tim Lyons, a spokesman at J.C. Penney Co. headquarters in Plano, Texas, said the Maui announcement was not made along with the others in early October because the company had not finalized arrangements to sell the Kahului store.

That has now been done but Penney did not name the buyer and officials of the mall that houses the store, the Queen Kaahumanu Center in Kahului, could not be reached for comment.

Like the others in Hawaii, the Maui store was not profitable, Lyons said yesterday.

The Maui store, which occupies 86,000 square feet of space, joins the flagship store in Ala Moana Center and smaller Penney outlets at the Pearlridge Center on Oahu and the Prince Kuhio Plaza in shutting down, ending a 36-year presence in the islands.

Altogether, the four stores have 526 employees.

The J.C. Penney store in Windward Mall was closed in 1998.

The company has been closing stores across the country to correct sagging earnings. Hawaii missed a big cut at the start of last year, when the company said it would close 50 stores. Penney recently reported a profit of $203 million for the first nine months of this year, compared to a net of only $3 million in the equivalent part of last year.

Ala Moana Center has yet to announce what will happen to the three floors of space occupied by J.C. Penney. At Pearlridge, the 130,000 square feet of Penney space in a two-story building has been acquired by neighbor Inspiration Home & Office Furnishings.