Sears to close Bend store

After nearly 60 years of operation in Bend, Sears is closing its doors.

The Sears department store and the Sears Auto Center, located in the Bend River Promenade on Northeast Third Street, will begin a liquidation sale on Friday and close to the public in mid-December, Howard Riefs, director of corporate communications for parent company Sears Holdings Corp., said in an email.

“The store closures are part of a series of actions we’re taking to reduce ongoing expenses, adjust our asset base and accelerate the transformation of our business model,” Riefs wrote in response to an inquiry from The Bulletin.

“These actions will better enable us to focus our investments on serving our customers and members through integrated retail — at the store, online and in the home.”

Riefs said no other Central Oregon Sears are expected to close.

Sears originally opened a catalog sales store in downtown Bend in 1954.

Twenty-six years later, in 1980, it became one of the two anchor tenants to move into the Bend River Promenade, formally the Bend River Mall, according to The Bulletin’s archives.

Sears Holdings Corp., which also includes Kmart, posted losses of $930 million last year and $3.1 billion in 2011. And over the last several years, the parent company has been closing stores across the country to reduce costs.

The corporation had 2,159 total Sears domestic stores, consisting of specialty and full-line stores, in 2010 and 852 last year, according to its 2012 annual report.

Shoppers at the Bend store expressed dismay Tuesday about its closing.

Geri Furer, of Longview, Wash., said she worked for Sears for 37 years until the store in Kelso, Wash., closed in January.

“That’s why I was so excited to come here because I needed to go to Sears,” Furer said. “I’m really, really upset. I can’t get over why so many Sears are closing down. The only thing I can think of is the economy.”

Mark Williams, who travels from Germany to visit Bend annually, said he’s been shopping at the Sears store for years.

“We will miss it,” Williams said.

The Bend store currently employs 48 people, said Riefs of Sears Holdings Corp.

Damon Runberg, a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department, said those 48 jobs account for about 5.5 percent of annual average department store employment in Deschutes County, according to the most recent data available.

He said the jobs will be disappearing around the same time other department stores are hiring for the holiday season. However, he said, the loss will still have a negative impact on the local economy.

Bill Smith, manager of William Smith Properties Inc. and developer of the Old Mill District, said competition from other department stores like Macy’s, Target and Kohl’s has caused Sears to lose customers.

“Sears has been going downhill for a long, long time,” Smith said. “It might be just a yawn really. Somebody will replace them.”

Rita Bowne, property manager for the Bend River Promenade, said the change means an exciting redevelopment opportunity and having the space available to court stores that may not already have a presence in the Bend market.

Compass Commercial Real Estate Services has known for about three months that Sears wasn’t going to renew its lease, so it has been actively marketing the roughly 62,000-square-foot store, said Darren Powderly, president of Compass Commercial.

“We’re negotiating with multiple national tenants on the space,” Powderly said. “The demand is very high.”

He said Compass is currently looking for a single tenant to occupy the space, but said it could be divided in half.

Powderly said Compass is also negotiating a lease on the former FedEx Office outlet in front of the Bend River Promenade.

“There’s a lot of interest from national retail tenants in Bend at the moment,” Powderly said.

Sears through the years

• 1886: Richard Sears begins the R.W. Sears Watch Co. in Minneapolis.

• 1887: Sears moves his business to Chicago and hires Alvah C. Roebuck.

• 1893: Corporate name becomes Sears, Roebuck and Co.

• 1895: Sears produces 532-page catalog of products that could be bought through the mail. Company sales exceed $750,000.

• 1925: Sears opens first retail store.

• 1954: Sears opens a catalog sales store in downtown Bend.

• 1961: The Bend catalog store moves two doors down from its Wall Street location.

• 1980: Sears opens in Bend River Mall, now Bend River Promenade.

• 2004: Kmart announces merger with Sears; Sears Holding Corp., parent company formed.

• Tuesday: Sears says it will close its Bend department store and auto center in mid-December.

Source: Sears