Yet another department store to close, leaving its owner with 1 Valley store — for now
Just weeks after Shopko started a liquidation sale at its Boise West store, it announced that its store in southeast Boise will also close.
The stores will close within a month of one another, with the location at 8105 W. Fairview Ave. closing on Saturday, March 16, and the location at 2655 Broadway Ave. closing on Sunday, April 7, wrote Shopko spokeswoman Michelle Hansen in an email to the Statesman.
About 100 full and part-time employees will lose their jobs as a result of the two closures.
In the Treasure Valley, only one Shopko will remain, at 2100 Caldwell Blvd. in Nampa. In 2016, Shopko closed its Meridian store, which opened in 1999, after a Walmart moved in next door. Now Albertsons plans to move into that space, which is in the Meridian Crossroads shopping center near the intersection of North Eagle Road and East Fairview Avenue.
Wisconsin-based Shopko has struggled with rising debt associated with its real estate acquisitions and declining margins, the Statesman previously reported. The news of the stores’ closure comes as one of Shopko’s pharmacy suppliers said it expects the retailer to file for bankruptcy protection on Tuesday, Jan. 15.
“As we reviewed the long-term outlook on profitability, sales trends and potential growth, we made the difficult decision to close these locations,” Hansen wrote. “The decision to close these locations is designed to strengthen our financial position, provide enhanced profitability and allow us to invest in new initiatives.”
Hansen did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the Nampa location would also close.
Shopko also operates a distribution center at 1001 E. Gowen Road, west of Interstate 84. It is one of four regional distribution centers the retailer operates and the only one outside the Midwest. Its status was not immediately known either.
Hansen declined to say how much Shopko paid to lease its Boise locations.
The southeast Boise store’s closure was first reported by BoiseDev.
This story was originally published January 14, 2019 at 2:03 PM.
