Add J.C. Penney Co. to the growing list of retail bankruptcies since the start of shelter-in-place orders driven by the coronavirus pandemic—and another potential headache for some local mall owners.
It’s the latest restructure in the industry, and one that will leave the Plano, Texas-based retailer a little lighter on its feet with the plan to evaluate and possibly close many of its stores.
The company currently has 846 stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Three of the centers ranked on the Business Journal’s list of the 30 largest shopping centers are anchored by a JCPenney store, including No. 3 Brea Mall, No. 10 MainPlace Mall and No. 13 Westminster Mall.
The company estimated in an SEC filing last week its store count would be around 604 by its fiscal year 2024.
The retailer identified an initial 20 leases (none of which are in OC) it requested a bankruptcy court judge approve for closures, describing them as not only unprofitable but having “zero customer foot traffic.”
It joins J. Crew Group Inc. of New York, which filed for Chapter 11 earlier this month. It has about 500 stores with its process for closures now approved by a judge. A specific list of stores to be shuttered has not yet been released.
And then there’s Dallas-based Neiman Marcus Group Ltd., which also filed for Chapter 11 in May. The company said it plans to close most of its off-price Last Call stores by October, although it hasn’t released additional details. It’s been shuttering locations since 2017 and currently has 22 Last Call stores, with one of those at The Outlets at Orange, and about 500 workers expected to be cut from the Last Call fleet.
The luxury retailer said it wanted to focus on its full-price stores as the reason for the shift.
