No longer America's favorite store. After building its very first full-sized store 62 years ago, Kmart Corporation will now close its final full-sized Kmart in the mainland United States. The Bridgehampton, New York store will close its doors for good on October 10. This comes five years after the holding company, Transform Holdco LLC (Transformco), acquired Sears Holdings assets back in 2019.
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According to a report by CNN, an employee from its Bridgehampton store - who remains anonymous - confirmed that the store was shutting down in October. Neither the store manager nor Transformco answered the phone or commented on the store closure.
While the fully-sized Kmart store in Bridgehampton will close, there's still a smaller Kmart store located in Miami, Florida. Said store sells, mainly, basic necessities, similar to a convenience store. Moreover, there are still some Kmart stores open outside the mainland U.S. Three are located in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and one is in Tamuning, Guam.
The End Of An Era
Founded by Sebastian Spering Kresge, the Kmart story began back in 1897. By 1912, the S. S. Kresge Company was incorporated with 85 different stores. However, it was not until 1962 that the very first Kmart-named store was opened. Thanks to Harry Cunningham, S. S. Kresge Company executive, sixteen more stores were opened the same year.
Kmart became famous for promotions such as the Blue Light Special. This was a limited-time sale promotion announced with the phrase "attention Kmart shoppers" over their public address system. The Blue Light Special was consistent until 1991 and had been brought back a couple of times throughout the years.
However, Kmart couldn't handle the competition with Walmart or Target and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002, closing around 300 stores in the United States. Then came the disastrous Sears merger, which saw even further Kmart and even Sears store closures. This led to Sears Holding filing for bankruptcy in 2018, the second for Kmart.
Transformco then acquired Sears Holdings assets in 2019, and Kmart became their subsidiary. That same year, 10 stores were shut down and, in 2020, Kmart closed 60 more stores. The Bridgehampton store remained the only full-sized store left and will continue to be until its final day, on October 10, 2024.
