Two local 84 Lumber stores have been 86’d.
Company officials announced Tuesday that the 84 Lumber stores in
Kane and Olean, N.Y., are among the 67 stores nationwide that are
closing.
Stores in “no-growth” and rural markets will be closed, as the
company tries to boost its annual sales to $10 billion by the end
of 2009, 84 Lumber said in a statement Tuesday.
About 600 employees will be affected by the closures, said
company spokesman Jeff Nobers. About two-thirds of those workers
will likely keep their jobs by relocating to other stores, Nobers
said.
For the two local stories, that amounts to 10-12 workers.
A representative at the Lantz Corners location said they had
five full-time employees before referring further questions to
corporate headquarters.
Nobers said that while the stores are closed as of Tuesday, they
are asking the employees to stay on a while longer.
“What we are doing is asking them to stay with us for two
weeks,” he said. At that time, all the inventory will be sold and
the property put up for sale.
“The store is closed as of today,” he said Tuesday, adding that
customers can still drop by both locations while they continue to
sell the inventory left that won’t be transferred to other
stores.
By April 14, the stores will be “cleaned out and ready for
sale.”
Company officials and employees will also look at where the
workers can relocate.
“We hope all the people will stay with us, but we also know
that’s not always feasible,” Nobers said.
The sign in front of the Kane store said it was relocating to
Falls Creek, near DuBois.
Nobers added that it came down to dollars and cents to keep a
store open.
“We looked at all the stores,” he said. They then used a formula
to determine what stores had the greatest “return on assets.”
The 67 stores that are closing, including the two local ones,
had “a trend to continue to decline on assets,” Nobers said. “It’s
not all negative in losing money. The return on assets was so low
in the market, it was never going to reverse.”
In the rural markets, closing the stores was “a sensible
business thing to do.”
“We determined that we needed to make some tough decisions
regarding underperforming stores and close them,” said company
President Maggie Hardy Magerko.
But not all the news was doom and gloom Tuesday.
Officials also plan to open 125 new stores in faster-growing
areas in at least 20 states. Nearly 50 news stores will open this
year, with up to 125 opening in the next three years, the company
said.
The company, the largest privately owned building materials
retailer in the country, had 521 stores and reported sales of
nearly $4 billion in 2005.
Unlike competitors such as The Home Depot Inc. and Lowe’s Cos.,
84 Lumber markets exclusively to contractors. The company says more
than 95 percent of its sales come from professional builders.
Founded in 1956, 84 Lumber is named after the town of Eighty
Four, where the original store continues to operate.
Now, the closest 84 Lumber location from Bradford appears to be
Jamestown, N.Y.
