ViaPort’s Sears store set to close
Kmart to remain as mall’s anchor
By John Cropley May 3, 2016
ROTTERDAM — The Sears store and the connected Sears Auto Center at ViaPort Rotterdam will close this summer, the latest in a series of sweeping changes at the former Rotterdam Square mall.
A Sears spokesman said today that a liquidation sale would begin Thursday, May 19, and the store would close its doors permanently in early August.
Sears Holdings on April 21 announced the impending closure of 68 Kmart stores and 10 Sears stores, but no Capital Region locations were on the list. The only New York stores targeted in that announcement were the Kmarts in Poughkeepsie and Rochester and the Sears in Irondequoit and Plattsburgh.
In February, Sears Holdings said it would accelerate the closure of unprofitable stores. On April 21 it said the announcement of the 78 closures “follows a comprehensive evaluation of the company’s store portfolio that took into account historical and recent store performance, and the timing of lease expirations.”
It said all of the targeted stores would close in late July except for two Kmarts that would shut their doors in mid-September.
A mall overhaul
Meanwhile, sweeping changes continue at the mall, which was renamed after Via Properties, a Turkish retail developer, purchased Rotterdam Square in May 2015 for $9.25 million with plans to make $10 million in renovations including a new aquarium and entertainment venue.
The closure of a main anchor store would appear to be a setback in a turnaround that has gained some momentum so far this year. The Kmart, which is not closing, will remain as the anchor tenant of the mall once Sears closes there.
Managers at the mall said today they had not been notified of Sears Holdings’ decision to shut down the Sears there and could not comment on it — but they discussed the progress made in revitalizing ViaPort Rotterdam.
Mall Manager Terri Emond said the mall — which suffered a high vacancy rate in recent years, particularly after the closure of Macy’s — is now at 73 percent occupancy. The goal is to create a balance of retail and entertainment attractions, and, with the new entertainment options nearly complete, the mall is working with a leasing agent to find more retail tenants, especially to occupy the former Macy’s footprint.
“We’re definitely looking for retail to fill that space,” she said.
Public relations manager Alan Fanitzi said Via Entertainment is expanding its schedule now, with live music on weekends and its first comedy show coming up Saturday.
There’s also a bowling alley, a sit-down sports bar/grill, and arcade games.
“We’re trying to make it so it’s family-friendly, so there’s something for everybody,” he said.
The feature that will set ViaPort apart from most malls has scales and gills.
Construction of the new aquarium is expected to be complete in June, said aquarium director David Gross, but once the tanks and other features are built, there’s still six weeks’ worth of setting up life-support systems and preparing the water.
Among the exhibits will be touch tanks where children can get close to marine life and a tunnel tank visitors can walk through.
“We’ll have some fun high-tech stuff too,” he said, including an augmented reality sandbox.
The 38 exhibits will contain a total of 78,000 gallons of water — 25,000 gallons of freshwater, the rest saltwater — and be home to a range of marine life, including saltwater and freshwater sharks.
Retail giant shrinking
Sears Holdings spokesman Howard Riefs said via email today that closure of the Rotterdam Sears is part of “a series of actions we’re taking to reduce on-going expenses, adjust our asset base, and accelerate the transformation of our business model.”
He did not have a count of the number of employees there but said those workers would receive severance if eligible and be able to apply for jobs at other Kmart and Sears stores.
Riefs said other such stores in the Capital Region — Sears locations in Colonie, Wilton and Queensbury, Kmarts in Greenwich and at ViaPort Rotterdam — are not being closed.
In announcing the store closures April 21, Sears Holdings said it expects the move to generate cash from the liquidation of store inventory and from the sale or sublease of some of the related real estate.
That, together with debt restructuring, would help it move toward its primary 2016 objective: profitability.
http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2016/may/03/0503_Sears/?dgzrg
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