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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Urbana K-Mart Not on the List of Stores to Close |
Current rating: 0 |
by Paul Riismandel
Email: paul (nospam) mediageek.org (unverified!)
Address: Somewhere in Urbana |
08 Mar 2002
Modified: 23 Mar 2002 |
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This morning the Kmart corporation announced that they will be closing 284 stores nationwide and cutting 22,000 jobs in the process. The Champaign and Urbana Kmarts are not amongst those stores. |
This morning the Kmart corporation announced that they will be closing 284 stores nationwide and cutting 22,000 jobs in the process. The company released the list of stores to be closed at 11 AM EST. Neither the Urbana or Champaign Kmart stores are among those listed for closing.
Many Urbana residents have feared that the Urbana store, the only major discount retailer in the city, would be one of the stores to be closed by the company. Petitions to keep the Urbana store open had been circulated and last week were hand delivered to Kmart's Michigan headquarters by Urbana's economic development coordinator.
Urbana residents feared that losing the city's Kmart would mean further inconvenience in having to travel to Champaign for basic shopping needs, which would place an additional burden on residents without cars who rely on public transport and other means. There were also fears that such a closure would further erode the city's retail commercial base.
Elsewhere in Central Illinois the Kmart store on Mt. Zion Rd. in Decatur and the Mattoon store are both scheduled to close, contributing to a total of 21 Illinois Kmarts to be shut down. |
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what will happen to the new k mart building in mattoon |
by Jeremy Kuhl
fcjjkuhl (nospam) obtnet.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
12 Mar 2002
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the k mart building in mattoon is a very nice building i just hope another discount store moves in there soon otherwise wal mart will have the run of the town. |
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Good the store stays, but roof leaks! |
by George R. Carlisle
carlisle (nospam) soltec.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
23 Mar 2002
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It is good to see the Urbana K-Mart will stay open for now, but the roof leaks badly. I was in there recently and saw buckets catching drip from missing ceiling tiles from the leaky roof. In some places, plastic sleeves were used to direct the water. They went to a lot of effort and expense to clean up the interior in the store fairly recently, and they rearranged the merchandise, but the roof leakage poses a health and safety hazard, if someone slips and falls on the wet floor. The roof repairts are critical. Despite the bankruptcy, the company urgently must find a way to repair the leaky roof and as soon as possible! This is unacceptable if we want to maintain and grow the customer base of the store.
Otherwise, customers will go elsewhere. After all, in Savoy, the sales tax is a cent less than in Urbana, so that might be a reason to shop at the Wal-Mart there.
We Urbana residents can save enough in gasoline not driving to Savoy, to more than offset the tax increase, so we need to get the roof fixed at Urbana K-Mart so it does not leak!
Then we can shop closer to home and not fear our safety of slipping and falling on a wet floor! |
