About 20 mostly local businesses appear as though they will be collateral damage in the move by Sears to vacate Hawaii’s largest shopping mall next year.
Companies providing watch repair, tuxedo rentals, flowers, food, embroidery, haircuts, hearing aids, greeting cards, optometry, dry cleaning, tax preparation and more are expected to be displaced by the closing of Sears at Ala Moana Center.
The department store operated in some ways as its own miniature shopping mall, with independent retailers spread through the store’s three floors. The arrangement, which exists at other Sears stores, earned the retailer added income from tenants, who in turn benefited from concentrated consumer traffic. Now the advantageous setup is translating into broader damage.
Don Wakeman, owner of 45-year-old kamaaina company Aloha Key, Awards & Gifts, is facing the loss of the largest of his seven locations — five of which are inside Hawaii Sears stores.
"I don’t know what’s next," he said. "It’s going to be something we’re going to have to plan for."
Wakeman said the symbiotic relationship with Sears allowed him to be at Hawaii’s biggest mall — something he said he couldn’t afford otherwise because traditional mall space is so much more expensive than being in Sears.
Aloha Key occupies space near a ground-floor makai entrance not far from the hardware and appliance departments.
Sears declined to comment about its tenants at Ala Moana. Mall owner General Growth Properties did not respond to a request for comment on the arrangement and what options Sears tenants might have.
The news of Sears’ plan to sell its store to Ala Moana owner General Growth to cash in on valuable real estate shocked several concessionaires.
"It’s crazy," said Reeve Okimura, whose dad, J.R. Passas, owns J.R.’s Caps and Embroidery next to an Oceanic Time Warner Cable service center and the gift card and wrapping concessionaire GBC Boxes & Packaging on the lower level of Sears.
The Ala Moana Sears is the only location for J.R.’s. "We don’t know what’s going on," Okimura said. "It’s surprising."
Some operators inside Sears did business using the Sears name, such as Flowers by Sears, Sears Optical Center and Sears Hair Studio. Others use their own well-established brand names — Zippy’s, Ba-Le Sandwich Shop, Dave’s Ice Cream, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, H&R Block, AT&T, Celebrity Tuxedos.
Sears said its Ala Moana store will close sometime in 2013, with a specific date to be announced later this year.
General Growth plans to redevelop the space for new uses.
