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Vienna hhgregg to close in April

Grand Central Mall store one of 88 to be shuttered by company

Photo by Brett Dunlap The hhgregg company announced on Thursday the closure of 88 stores, including the store in Vienna at the Grand Central Mall. The stores will close around mid-April, the company said.

VIENNA — A national chain Thursday became the second in two months to announce it is closing a local store.

The hhgregg company announced it will close 88 stores and among those the store at the Grand Central Mall in Vienna.

The company also said it will close three distribution facilities “to reallocate resources to align more closely with its strategic goals to improve liquidity and return to profitability.” The decision will enable hhgregg to refocus on core markets and goals, the company said.

“We are strategically exiting markets and stores that are not financially profitable for us,” said Robert J. Riesbeck, hhgregg president and CEO. “This is a proactive decision to streamline our store footprint in the markets where we have been, and will continue to be, important to our customers, vendor partners and communities. We feel strongly that the markets we will remain in are the right ones for our customers and our business model. Our team is dedicated to moving forward and being a profitable 13-store, multi-regional chain where we will continue to be a dominant force in appliances, electronics and home furnishings.”

Comments from the Grand Central Mall and from the affected store were not immediately available.

Upon opening the Vienna store in July 2012, the company said 40 people would be employed. Borders book store, which closed in 2012, was in the site before hhgregg.

The news was a surprise to Vienna Mayor Randy Rapp.

“Well, that’s not good,” he said.

Rapp said economic conditions in other parts of the country are impacting stores here.

“We kind of get sucked into that,” Rapp said.

At the end of December, Sears Holding Corp., which owns Kmart, announced it was closing the store in south Parkersburg where there is a liquidation of merchandise underway. The store will close in mid-April along with stores in Bridgeport, Elkins and Charleston.

J.C. Penney on Feb. 24 announced it will close 140 stores. J.C. Penney, an anchor store in the mall, has not identified which stores will close.

The closings of the hhgregg stores will be completed by mid-April, the company said. Nationally, the closures will impact about 1,500 positions.

Inventory in the affected stores will be sold over the coming weeks, the company said.

“The management team has worked tirelessly over the past year to return hhgregg to profitability,” Riesbeck said. “We have determined that the economics of the affected locations will not allow us to achieve our overall goal of becoming a profitable company again. After scrutinizing our real estate portfolio, we have identified a number of under-performing stores, as well as store locations that are no longer strong shopping destinations due to changes in the local retail shopping landscape.”

Distribution and delivery centers in Brandywine, Md., Miami, Fla., and Philadelphia, Pa., will close, but remain in operation for customer orders until everything has been delivered.

“I understand this is not an easy process to go through; our history has shown that our team members will meet this challenge head-on and continue to support our customers and each other through the closing process,” Riesbeck said.

Among the closure of the 88 stores are stores in Akron, Newark and Springdale in Ohio.

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