Local Sears stores say they're not closing

Nevada's Sears Hometown Store will definitely not be among the 100 to 120 Sears and Kmarts that will be closed nationally, the store manager said Tuesday.

The Sears Hometown Store in Pittsburg also is not slated for closure, store manager Colin Jones said.

"I don't expect any in this area to be affected," said Dave Knowles, whose brother Steve owns the Nevada store. "We're locally owned, so we're not going anywhere."

Knowles said the 1909 E. Austin Blvd. store usually has four or five employees.

Emphasizing that he was not knowledgeable about corporate decision-making, Knowles said Kmarts may be the most affected.

There are three Kmarts in Springfield, 100 miles southeast of Nevada.

The Associated Press said Tuesday that poor holiday sales had prompted the Hoffman Estates, Ill.-based Sears Holdings Corp. to announce its decision regarding the as-yet unspecified stores.

Having combined Sears, Roebuck & Co. with Kmart Holdings Corp. of Troy, Mich., in 2005, the company has about 280,000 employees at more than 4,000 stores in the U.S. and Canada, according to references. One hundred stores comprise about 2.5 percent of the total.

Using the names of Sears, Sears Grand, Sears Hometown Stores, Sears Hardware, Sears Essentials, Kmart, Big Kmart, Super Kmart, the Great Indoors and Land's End, Sears Holdings is the nation's 10th largest retailer behind Walmart, Kroger, Target, Walgreens, Home Depot, Costco, CVS, Caremark, Lowe's and Best Buy, references say. Hoffman Estates is a Chicago suburb.

AP said Sears Holdings would not disclose how many, if any, employees will be laid off, but it promised to post the store closures list at www.searsmedia.com when the final decisions are made.

The wire service reported that Sears' stock had dropped by $8.67, or 18.9 percent, to $37.18 per share Tuesday morning.