Tucsonβs last Kmart store will close after nearly 50 years in business, as owner Sears Holdings sheds stores while struggling to survive bankruptcy.
The Kmart at 7055 E. Broadway, which opened in 1970, is among 80 Sears and Kmart stores on a new list of planned store closures filed Friday in the companyβs Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in New York.
The company closed its Sears store at Park Place Mall in July, leaving Tucson with one Sears at Tucson Mall and a Sears Home Appliance Showroom in Marana.
As part of the last round of 142 store closures after its bankruptcy filing in October, Sears shuttered its only store in Sierra Vista, three stores in the Phoenix area and one in Yuma.
That followed the closure of 46 stores, including one in Yuma, announced in August.
The timing of the new closures was not detailed in the Sears filing, but the company has moved quickly to hold store-closure sales and shutter stores under guidelines approved by the court.
The Kmart on Broadway employed about 150 people in 2009, when its grocery section was dropped and it was converted from a Kmart Superstore to a Big K store.
Kmart, which acquired Sears in 2005, also formerly operated a Kmart Superstore in Marana and one on Tucsonβs south side.
Sears Holdings faced a Friday deadline for bids to buy the companyβs assets out of bankruptcy, but if it receives no bids, the company faces possible liquidation.
An investment firm run by former Sears CEO Eddie Lampert has floated a $4.6βbillion bid for the company, but that bid had not been formally submitted to the court as of Friday.
