Lindenhurst's Sears Hardware to Close this Spring

The shopping centers on Wellwood Avenue and around the corner on Sunrise Highway in North Lindenhurst are about to take another hit.

Anchor store - which opened in 1997 - will later this Spring. It joins other major anchors that have in recent years, such as Rite-Aid, Auto Barn and Hollywood Video.

"The store is expected to close in early June, and is being closed for poor performance," Kimberly Freely wrote in an e-mail to Lindenhurst Patch.

Freely's the spokesperson for the store chain's parent company Sears Holdings Corporation, which is based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.

Freely wouldn't elaborate about what constituted "poor performance," nor about how long the location has been performing poorly.

Instead she pointed to pages two and three of Sears Holdings' annual report for the fiscal year ended January 28, 2012.

Sears Holdings currently operates 1,338 specialty stores, which include appliance showrooms, Hometown Stores, outlets, hardware and Great Indoors locations.

That number, the annual report said, includes "43 Sears Hometown Stores, 10 Sears Hardware Stores and nine The Great Indoors Stores that we plan to close in the first half of 2012."

In addition, the report also indicated that, "On February 23, 2012, we announced that we're currently planning to separate Sears Hometown and Outlet businesses and certain hardware stores in the third quarter of 2012 through a transfer to electing shareholders."

Freely declined to get into specifics about impending store closures, and the report doesn't list the exact locations this plan affects.

(The full report could be found at searsholdings.com under "investors," she noted. See also the accompanying PDF.)

However, according to one employee, the Sears Appliances and Hardware locations in and are also set to close this . And a flier at the North Lindy location indicated that locations in Patchogue, Port Jefferson and Lake Ronkonkoma "will continue to serve [customers]" along with Sears.com."

The employee said that management and associates at the North Wellwood Avenue location were told about the store's impending closure four weeks ago.

"The store closing was announced to associates back in February," confirmed Freely.

"While I don't have an employee count, the majority of the employees are part-time. Those who qualify will receive severance, and associates will be notified of open positions at other nearby Sears and Kmart locations," she added.

Freely didn't release information about what'll happen to the leased location, how much time is left on the lease, if any, or the landlord, stating, "We don't comment on our leases, and we don't release landlord information."

In the meantime the Lindenhurst location is in the midst of a Store Closing Sale, and has signs plastered all over the store, inside and out - even out in the parking lot next to Wellwood Avenue.