RUSS LYNCH / RLYNCH@STARBULLETIN.COM
Naked mannequins and empty shelves and racks were all that remained yesterday at J.C. Penney's Ala Moana store, which will officially shut down today.
A dismembered store mannequin rested against an upturned showcase, her head and shoulders unattached, cast off to one side. Elsewhere, a similarly naked male mannequin sat on the floor, waiting for a new home.
The retailer’s 4 isle outlets are shut,
victims of poor businessBy Russ Lynch
rlynch@starbulletin.comThose are the remnants of the J.C. Penney store in Ala Moana Center.
All that is left in the four-floor, 180,000-square-foot store is about half a floor of store fittings, a table cluttered with credit-card stampers, some clothing racks and an assortment of bins and plastic shelves.
Plus a handful of employees, also looking for a home. With the store's closing set for 2:30 p.m. today, the promotions boasting discounts as high as 80 percent are done. There is no merchandise left to sell.
A few managers and a skeleton crew of salespeople will still be around through Thursday, but only to handle disposal of the store's fixtures.
Store employees said they were told not to talk to reporters. One did, however: a woman who was at the store from the start.
"I've been here 36 years," she said. "I came in with the contractors. It was nothing but bare walls. I guess I'm going out with bare walls."
The flagship Ala Moana store opened in 1966. In later years, Texas-based J.C. Penney Co. Inc. opened stores in Pearlridge Center and Windward Mall on Oahu and in the Prince Kuhio Plaza in Hilo and the Queen Kaahumanu Center in Kahului. The Windward Mall store closed in 1998. Now the rest are closing, victims of a corporate need to cut costs and increase profits. None of the Hawaii stores made money lately, the company said.
Retail analysts said J.C. Penney merchandise was too middle-of-the-road for today's marketing, which calls for high-end fashion stores on one end and discount marts on the other, with nothing much in between.
The island closings, all set to officially take place today, cost Hawaii 526 jobs and created more than 400,000 square feet of empty retail space.
Arrangements are pending for the Maui space. At Pearlridge a nearby retailer, INspiration Home & Office Furnishings, took over the Penney's space and plans to move into the main floor and find smaller tenants for the rest.
Ala Moana Center has not announced plans for the Penney space there, although there has been speculation that it might be a good spot for Nordstrom Inc., which said it still wants to bring a full-line department store to Hawaii.
There has been no disclosure about the Hilo space that Penney's is vacating.
The stores all had a busy Christmas because of going-out-business discounts, corporate spokesman Tim Lyons said yesterday.
"I've talked to a couple of the (Hawaii) store managers, and they said business was strong," Lyons said.
The Ala Moana store reported a bigger sales volume for October than it normally had for December, traditionally the busiest month of the year.
The Maui store was already closed yesterday afternoon. In that case the fixtures went with the store to the new tenant, whoever it will be, officials said. The Pearlridge store said it would close at 5:30 p.m. today.
Despite the closing of the retail stores, Penney's might still have a presence in Hawaii, Lyons said. The company's national catalog arm is looking for a way to work with a local retailer to handle catalog sales in the islands, he said.
Lyons said that is done elsewhere, such as in communities that are too small to support a J.C. Penney store. People can view a Penney's catalog in the store and order from it, either for home delivery or for pickup from that store, Lyons said.
"We find another vendor or vendors to handle our catalogs," he said, "maybe a hardware store or something else."
