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CINDY ELLEN RUSSELL / crussell@staradvertiser.com
The Kmart at 4561 Salt Lake Blvd will be closing in March.
Kmart is closing its Salt Lake store in mid-March as part of a nationwide move to unload unprofitable locations.
The company notified employees Tuesday of its decision to close the store at 4561 Salt Lake Boulevard, near the Aloha Stadium, and to begin liquidation sales on Jan. 6.
“We can confirm that we are making the difficult, but necessary decision to close the Kmart store in Honolulu,” said Howard Riefs, a spokesman for Kmart’s parent company Sears Holdings Corp., in an email. “We have been strategically and aggressively evaluating our store space and productivity and have accelerated the closing of unprofitable stores as previously announced.”
He didn’t disclose the number of workers at the Salt Lake location, but said eligible employees will receive severance and can apply for open positions at Sears or Kmart stores on Oahu. Riefs said most employees are part time.
The company closed its Waikele Center location earlier this month, following the March shutdown of the Kmart store on Nimitz Highway in Iwilei, which affected more than 140 workers. That store opened 1992.
The closure leaves Kmart with one store on Oahu, in Kapolei, and one store each on Maui, Kauai and Hawaii island.
I would almost bet the house that the KMart in Kona will be the next Hawaii store to close. With Target and WalMart practically next door, there never seems to be enough customers shopping there. Also, a lot of customers really don’t like having to go thru the monotonous check out process of punching in your phone number and answering survey questions.
Bummer! Now I can’t not go there anymore.
Goodbye K Mart. Target is already nearby in Salt Lake so perhaps Wal Mart could take its place.
You can “Thank” all those who buys online to save $2 for an item instead of driving to support locals to save their jobs. Nice going peeps. FYI, I never buy online #supporttheworkforce
Build a water park.
your a dummy
Unfortunately the workforce at Kmart leave a lot to be desired as far as customer service. On a visit there a few months ago the lines at the only two open registers were very long while the manager and staff were talking story near the customer service counter. They paid no attention to the lines and when it was brought to their attention became defensive and angry. Not the way to react when a customer brings this to light. I still go there but always feel sad because the seasonal department is always so full of merchandise while the store has very few people in it. I guess their owner, Sears, failed to change with the times and attract more customers or keep them.
Good riddance. This K-mart was ALWAYS such a tedious pain upon checkout. Why????
The remaining 4 stores will be gone soon. These people can always shop at Neiman Marcus or one of the other wonderful stores at Aa Moana when we are forced to pay for getting the Rail there. The Feds can say we don’t need to keep going. Maybe they should pay the bill.
It is only a matter of time before the other K-Mart stores all close in Hawaii. Sears is next. K-Mart has been terrible over the years running sales and the items are not in stock, stores claim it is a mainland ad, so what’s with that? I always thought Hawaii state law requires any item on sale must have that item displayed. K-Mart always runs sales without the product in stock. Funny when they have more employees in the store than customers, knew it”s just a matter of time. Sears employees better start looking for other jobs as their time is coming soon.