PERU — The prospects of Sears have seemingly fallen from the heights of the famous Sears Tower and the impact of that plummet will soon be felt in the Peru Mall.
Sears recently announced the impending closure of 43 more retail locations on top of the 265 stores they’ve previously announced. The list encompasses eight Sears stores, including the anchor store in the Peru Mall, the only Illinois closure, and 35 Kmarts.
Sears was founded in 1893 as a mail order company, and through their catalogs anything a home could need — including the home itself, could be easily purchased. They began opening retail locations in 1925 and were the largest retailer in the nation until eclipsed by Walmart in 1989.
The Peru Mall’s JC Penney store is scheduled to close soon, which, after Sears closes in early October, will leave the mall with only one anchor department store, Bergner’s, part of a small, Illinois-based chain of department stores.
“We have had contingency plans in place that we have developed over the last two years. Obviously, there are some things we can’t talk about publicly; but there are serious decisions ahead,” Bob Vickrey, economic development director for the city of Peru, said in a press release.
The other Sears closures will be in Clarksville, Elkhart and Schererville, Ind.; Garden City, Kan.; Cranberry, Pa.; Paris, Texas; and Kenosha, Wis..
“Changes in consumer behavior are driving our vision and actions, and we continue to transform our business model so that our physical store footprint and our digital capabilities match the needs and preferences of our members,” Eddie Lampert, CEO of Sears Holding Corporation, said in a statement.
The Peru Mall opened in 1974 and is 465,000 square feet. Like many shopping malls across the nation, modern shopping trends have begun to slowly decrease their viability and have many questioning the future of the once ubiquitous suburban attractions.