Linens ”™n Things has filed for voluntary bankruptcy and is shutting down 120 underperforming stores, including three in the lower Hudson Valley region.
The stores to close in Westchester County are a 57,000-square-foot location in the Midway Shopping Center on Central Park Avenue in Scarsdale and the 44,000-square-foot one in the Cortlandt Town Center on Route 6 in Mohegan Lake. The company is also shutting its 44,000-square-foot store at the Woodbury Town Center in Harriman.
The company has secured $700 million in debtor-in-possession financing from General Electric Capital Corp.
Linens ”™n Things, which operated 589 stores in 47 states and seven provinces across the United States and Canada, had sales of about $2.8 billion last year. The company said its Canadian stores are among the strongest performers in the chain.
“The significant deterioration in the mortgage, housing and credit markets and the resulting impact on the retail marketplace, particularly the home sector, has overwhelmed the operating and merchandising improvements that we have made over the past two years,” said Robert J. DiNicola, executive chairman of the retail chain. “We are making the strategic decision to use a Chapter 11 filing to proactively address our capital structure and ensure that our stores will remain well stocked while we work through the steps to align the capital structure of the company with the realities of today”™s business environment. At the store level, we remain fully operational and ready to serve our guests.”
The company did not indicate when the stores would close.
David Landes, a principal with the real estate brokerage firm Royal Properties Inc. in Bronxville, said the two Westchester locations should not be difficult to market.
“Central Avenue is the hottest retail location in Westchester County, and there”™s not a lot of big block space available there,” he said. “If you”™re a big block anchor and you”™re looking for north of 30,000 square feet, this is a place you have to be.”
Though not as heavily trafficked as Central Avenue, Landes said the Route 6 corridor which serves much of the retail needs of northern Westchester County, is also an ideal location for a big box retailer.
“They”™re both very, very good locations,” he said. “There is strong traffic, and strong demographics.”
Landes said the sagging economy may have some effect on marketing the two spaces, but it probably won”™t hinder any potential deals.
“It won”™t be hard to market,” Landes said of the two spaces.
