DeKalb JCPenney location among several closing

DeKALB – JCPenney is severing ties with DeKalb after 87 years in the city.

Company officials announced this week the DeKalb store, 2540 Sycamore Road, will be one of 40 closing across the country on or around April 4. JCPenney has been in DeKalb since 1928, first in downtown DeKalb and later in the Northland Plaza.

City of DeKalb Community Development Director Ellen Divita said a member of the company’s public affairs team called the city Wednesday to inform officials of the closure.

“It’s another national retailer closing stores, and we are caught in it,” Divita said. “They’re re-sizing. This always happens the first quarter of the year.”

According to company spokesperson Sarah Holland, the company closed 34 stores in 2014. The 40 stores that will close this year represent close to 4 percent of JCPenney’s 1,060 stores nationwide.

Holland said about 50 people work at the 55,000-square- foot DeKalb store; 2,250 employees will be affected by closures nationwide. Eligible employees that don’t transfer to another store – the nearest are in North Aurora or CherryVale Mall near Rockford – will receive separation benefits, Holland said.

Members of the DeKalb/Sycamore Goodfellows issued a collective groan at the news, board member Rick Turner said. For more than 35 years, the nonprofit organization has worked with personal shoppers at JCPenney to purchase clothes that are donated to children in DeKalb County.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have this relationship,” Turner said. “The shoppers who have been involved ... we couldn’t do this without them.”

Divita said it was difficult news to hear, especially because the company appeared to be performing well.

A day before company officials called the city about the closure, JCPenney reported comparable store sales were up 3.7 percent over a nine-week period in November and December, compared to the same time last year, according to a company release.

JCPenney is the latest addition to a list of companies leaving the DeKalb market. Barnes & Noble closed Dec. 31; meanwhile the General Electric plant will close Jan. 30 and Big Lots plans a Jan. 31 closure.

Those closings represent more than 175 jobs.

Mayor John Rey said he was disappointed but not surprised, considering a previous announcement from the company that it would be closing hundreds of stores this year.

Rey said the city would continue looking for retailers to fill the voids, and it will keep listening to the demands from the local market.

“National retailers have economies of scale,” Rey said. “But it does open an opportunity in that market for local entrepreneurs to get a foothold in.”