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Red Oak and Urbandale Kmart stores to close soon

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January 4th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

Sears Holdings, the parent company of Sears and Kmart stores, announced Thursday they will be closing more than 100 more stores, including two in Iowa. One is located in Red Oak, the other in Urbandale, leaving the store in Council Bluffs as the only Kmart in the area.  According to officials in Red Oak, about 30-people working at the Kmart Store there will lose their jobs. A total of 64 Kmart locations and 39 Sears stores are affected, nationwide, including the Sears store in Waterloo. Sears stores in Atlantic, Carroll and Clarinda are not affected. The closings are scheduled to occur between early March and April of this year, with liquidation sales at some stores set to begin as early at January 12th.

The announcement comes after Sears Holdings announced the closing of 45 Kmart stores and and 18 Sears stores after the 2017 holiday shopping season. The company announced in early November that closures would affect employees in 26 states, and that the stores would remain open until late January 2018. Prior to that, Sears Holdings had announced closures at 308 Kmart and Sears stores, with Sears CEO Eddie Lampert saying, “This is part of a strategy both to address losses from unprofitable stores and to reduce the square footage of other stores because many of them are simply too big for our current needs.”

In a statement regarding the current closures, Sears Holding said, “We will continue to close some unprofitable stores as we transform our business model so that our physical store footprint and our digital capabilities match the needs and preferences of our members.” Sears did not say how many of its employees would be impacted by the latest round of store closings, but they said most of those lost would be part-time positions.