City’s first big box falls victim to parent Sears’ bankruptcy filing

There’s about to be a big hole in Peachtree City’s southside shopping center.

The Kmart store at the Braelinn Village retail center on Crosstown Drive will be closing. The Peachtree City location is one of 142 Sears and Kmart stores closing nationwide before the end of the year.

Above, an undated aerial view of Braelinn Shopping Center from its Facebook page shows the Kroger anchor at bottom left and Kmart at top right.

The Kmart store was the city’s first big box store. It and the Kroger SuperCenter anchored the first big retail development on the city’s southside in February 1989. Braelinn is home to 27 businesses, according to its Facebook page.

According to www.businessinsider.com, Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Oct. 15 and announced plans to close 142 stores before the end of the year, with liquidation sales beginning immediately.

Sears has been closing stores and selling off assets following years of crippling sales declines. The company now operates 687 Sears and Kmart stores, according to its bankruptcy filing. That’s down from nearly 2,000 stores in 2013, businessinsider.com said.

The company has closed several hundred stores in recent years as it tries to stabilize its finances amid deteriorating sales. The most recent round, announced Aug. 23, involved plans to close 13 Kmart stores and 33 Sears locations in November, according to www.usatoday.com

Also closing will be the Kmart store in Covington.

Kmart has fallen from its lofty perch as the second largest independent retailer in the United States in the early 1980s, second only to Sears Roebuck. Walmart at that time was a distant but rapidly gaining third.