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Two more Northeastern Pennsylvania Kmart stores are slated to close, the chain’s parent company announced Thursday.
The stores at 910 Wilkes-Barre Township Boulevard (Route 309) and in the Berwick Shopping Plaza are slated to shut down by February, a list released by Transformco indicated.
Going out of business sales will begin Dec. 2, the company announced.
Those closures come as Transformco, which purchased the assets of Sears Holdings Corporation in February, “made the difficult but necessary decision to streamline our operations and close 96 Sears and Kmart stores,” the company announced.
In addition to Wilkes-Barre Township and Berwick, the compant plans to close three other Pennsylvania Kmart stores — in Ephrata, Lebanon and Williamsport — as well as Sears stores in North Wales and Whitehall.
The move will leave just 182 Sears and Kmart stores overall, of which the only one remaining in Northeastern Pennsylvania will be the Mark Plaza Kmart in Edwardsville.
“We will continue to evaluate our Sears and Kmart footprint, consistent with our overall retail and service strategy,” the company’s release added.
Sears closed its Wyoming Valley Mall store in the summer of 2018, while Kmart stores at Laurel Mall in Hazle Township and in Pittston Township were shut down in the spring of that year.
The Edwardsville Kmart has proven a survivor in more ways than one. It was submerged when floodwaters flowed into Mark Plaza in September 2011 and reopened the following summer.