Credit: Mike Kalasnik
While J.C. Penney has not yet released which of its stores would be closing before the end of the year, MorningStar Credit Ratings has put the Middletown location on its list of stores at risk for closing.
Last month, J.C. Penney said it would close 130 to 140 locations that made little to no profits for the department store chain. The full list won’t be released until later this month but it has been reported the Willow Grove Mall location will close.
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The fate of the Oxford Valley Mall location is up in the air but MorningStar has placed it on a list of stores that either need significant capital investment or have seen lower-than-average sales.
The Oxford Valley Mall store has an average sales rate of $332 per square foot, among the lowest of the 39 malls identified by MorningStar. In addition, the store’s lease with the mall ends in August 2018.
J.C. Penney is one of the mall’s three remaining anchors. The other anchor stores are Macy’s and Sears, both of which have been consolidating their footprint nationwide. The former Strawbridge’s at the mall was converted to a Boscov’s department store in 2006 and closed two years later due to a restructuring of the Berks County-based retailer. The former Boscov’s location has sat empty in the mall since that time.
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MorningStar analysts noted that the closure of other mall anchor stores could have an impact on other retailers’ decisions. They cited the fact that less retailers in the mall likely means less foot traffic and sales for remaining anchor stores.
MorningStar Equity Analyst Bridget Weishaar said department stores across the country have fallen to 3.6 percent from 5.2 percent of total retail sales during the past five years.
