Retailer shuts Greenburgh site
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; mso-ascii- mso-ascii-theme- mso-fareast- mso-fareast-theme- mso-hansi- mso-hansi-theme- mso-bidi- mso-bidi-theme-}
A retailer of entertainment software including video games, DVDs and music has closed its 3,300-foot store at 413 Tarrytown Road in Greenburgh.
Albany-based Trans World Entertainment Corp., parent to the f.y.e. (For Your Entertainment) chain, will close 70 f.y.e. stores by the end of the year. John J. Sullivan, executive vice president, chief financial officer and secretary of Trans World Entertainment, said the decision to close the underperforming stores came after a disappointing holiday sales season.                                                                                                              Â
“Sales for the holiday season were well below our expectations,” said Robert J. Higgins, chairman and chief executive officer of Trans World Entertainment. “With this season”™s holiday sales being lower than our expectations, we now anticipate EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) for the fourth quarter of $15 million to $20 million with an annual EBITDA loss for fiscal 2008 in the range of $20 million to $25 million, compared to our previously issued annual guidance of $10 to $15 million.”
The store closings will affect about 700 employees, Sullivan said, and the cuts will leave Trans World with about 8,000 full- and part-time employees.
Trans World will have 715 stores when the current round of closings is completed this month.
The company operates retail stores in the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, primarily under the names f.y.e. and Suncoast.
“We”™ve got a number of stores where leases are expiring, and if we can make a better economic deal, we keep it open, if not, we close,” Sullivan said. “We close stores at the end of every year.”
Commenting on the retail real estate market in general, Mike Rao, president of New York Commercial Realty Group, said overall it”™s active, “but everyone”™s on the sidelines waiting to see what happens in the next six months to a year.”
“If the big box retailer goes out of business, especially an anchor store, a lot of the smaller shops in the area that relied on those stores to draw people there will be affected.”