Sears announced today the retail chain will sell its Ala Moana Center location to the mall owner and will close next year.
In an article by The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, the Ala Moana location is one of 11 stores in nine states that is being sold to General Growth Properties for $270 million.
The company said the business transactions are expected to close in the next 45 to 60 days and will announce the final closing dates later this year.
The Star-Advertiser reported that Sears is one of the original tenants of Ala Moana Center when it opened in 1959.
The company has been facing a slump in sales, said the article, and consumers are going elsewhere for goods like clothes and appliances. Sears reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $2.4 billion.
The Star-Advertiser reported that on Dec. 27, the company had announced it would close as many as 120 Sears and Kmart stores to generate up to $170 million from inventory and lease sales.
“We will make the difficult decisions required to position Sears Holdings for the future and we will not accept such poor performance without making substantial adjustments,” said Sears owner Eddie Lampert today. “We have a portfolio of businesses and assets that deserve to generate substantial value for our shareholders.”
General Growth Chief Operating Officer Shobi Khan told the Star-Advertiser that Ala Moana Center is the company’s most productive mall, having sales more than $1,200 per square foot. Selling the space back to the mall allows for opportunities in redevelopment, such as “re-tenanting the anchor space and adding new in-line GLA (gross leasable area),” Khan said.