2 More Kmart Locations, 1 Sears Store Closing In Western Pa.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Two of the last Kmarts left in western Pennsylvania will soon be closing their doors, along with another Sears location.
The parent company of Sears and Kmart confirmed the closures to KDKA.
Transformco says the Kmart locations in Leechburg, Armstrong County, and New Castle, Lawrence County, will both close their doors in the winter.
The Sears store in Washington Crown Center in Washington County will also close.
Sears's parent company, dubbed Transform Holdco (or Transformco) and run by Eddie Lampert and his ESL Investments fund, laid off about 250 employees last week at the company's headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. The layoffs were disclosed in an Aug. 29 notice with the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
In early August, Transformco said it would close 26 stores by October. Transformco, however, declined to comment on media reports that as many as 100 additional Sears and Kmart stores would close by year-end. Some of the closings have been posted online on sites including thelayoff.com.
"We're not providing a list of any of the more recent closings," Sears spokesman Larry Costello told CBS MoneyWatch. Instead, the company is responding to queries "at a local level," he added.
KDKA reached out to Costello who released this statement: "After careful review, we have made the difficult but necessary decision to close the Kmart stores in Leechburg and New Castle, Pennsylvania and the Sears store in Washington, Pennsylvania. The liquidation sales are expected to begin in mid-September and the stores are planned to close by mid-December. We encourage customers to continue shopping on Kmart.com and Sears.com for all their product needs."
For more information on this developing story as well as the full list of closures around the country, visit CBS News at this link.