Local Penney’s not on closings list

HARLINGEN — J.C. Penney released its long-awaited store closure list Friday and the Valle Vista Mall location was not on it.

Nine other Texas locations were not as fortunate, including one of the two Penney’s locations in McAllen, the downtown store at 300 S. Main St.

The list comprises 138 stores nationwide, and some 5,000 workers will be displaced. Some will be offered the opportunity to transfer but not all workers will be eligible, Penney’s said in a statement.

Penney’s will still have four locations in the Rio Grande Valley — Harlingen, Brownsville, McAllen and Weslaco.

Penney’s, which has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, is the latest mall-based company to respond to soft earnings with store closings.

Sears Holdings, which includes the Sears and Kmart brands, announced plans to close 150 stores earlier this year, and Macy’s is closing 68 stores and cutting 10,000 jobs.

The total store closures represent around 13 percent of the current number of Penney’s stores.

The company said yesterday that liquidation sales at the stores being shut down would begin April 17 and the locations will be completely shut down in June.

Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers like Penney’s and others have been hit hard by competition from online sales.

Sales at Penney’s stores which have been open for more than a year fell 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter which ended Jan. 28, a bigger drop than the 0.5 percent decrease analysts predicted