JCPenney at the Cache Valley Mall will be shutting its doors permanently.

LOGAN – Cache Valley is losing another big box store. JCPenney had previously announced it would be permanently closing 242 stores nationwide, and on Thursday revealed the first 154 locations, which includes the store in the Cache Valley Mall. The 47,000 square foot retailer has been a mainstay in Logan for decades and was a primary anchor when the mall opened in the summer of 1976. Before being located in the Cache Valley Mall, JCPenney was located in the Emporium for years before that.

The JCPenney announcement is another blow to the Cache Valley Mall which has struggled to fill the large vacancy created when Herberger’s closed its doors in 2018. When, exactly, the Logan store will close its doors for the last time is still not known.

“While closing stores is always an extremely difficult decision, our store optimization strategy is vital to ensuring we emerge from both Chapter 11 and the COVID-19 pandemic as a stronger retailer with greater financial flexibility to allow us to continue serving our loyal customers for decades to come,” J.C. Penney CEO Jill Soltau said in a statement.

Only one other Utah location was listed in Thursday’s announcement, the store in the Layton Hills Mall. Two locations in Idaho will be closing, one in Lewiston and one in Ponderay.

Corporate losses nationwide and the coronavirus pandemic forced the international retailer to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Friday, May 15, 2020. The mega-retailer was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on May 18, after having been listed there for over 90 years. According to FactSet, JCPenney lost money in eight of the last nine years, totaling $4.45 billion.

Going-out-of-business sales could begin within the next week to 10 days. Those sales could last 10-16 weeks.

The Logan location is the closest geographically (less than 95 miles away) to JCPenney’s original store, which opened in Kemmerer, Wyoming on April 14, 1902. For a time, the retailer’s national headquarters were located in Salt Lake City before moving to New York (between 1909-1914). The company is currently headquartered in Texas. At its height, the store operated over 2,050 stores in multiple countries around the world.



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