Kmart's Chicago Plan

Kmart Corp. (Troy, Mich.) has reportedly released a list of the 490 stores it intends to close in 2003. According to Crain's Chicago Business, local real estate brokers received a list of 17 Chicago-area outlets due to go dark early next year.

The list evidently identifies four city and 13 suburban stores due to be cut. Real estate sources emphasized that the planned closures are not final. Kmart expects to negotiate lower rents on leases with some landlords. If the retailer is successful, more stores may remain open.

A Kmart spokesman did not deny that more store closings are in the offing. “We are reviewing our entire store base and will make an announcement in January,” he told Crain's. “What you have now is not an official store closing list.”

Kmart once had about 75 stores in the Chicago area, each averaging 80,000 square feet. If the report is true, the retailer will soon be operating fewer than 30 locations in the metropolitan area. Among those reportedly slated to close in 2003: in Chicago, stores at North and Kostner avenues, at Cicero and Elston avenues, at Lincoln Avenue and McCormick Boulevard and on North Ashland Avenue; in the suburbs, stores in Elk Grove Village, Broadview, Cicero, Forest Park, Franklin Park, McHenry, Lansing, Lockport, Palatine, Homer Glen and Waukegan, plus two stores in Joliet.

There would also be 10 store closures in downstate Illinois: one each in Belleville, Carbondale, Fairview Heights, Jacksonville, Macomb, Mt. Vernon, Peoria, Sterling and Washington, and two in Springfield.