J.C. Penney's closes local store with sale

J.C. Penney's of College Mall, 2966 E. Third St., opened its doors for the last time Saturday before closing them permanently after 20 years in Bloomington. The store was closed as part of a restructuring program for the department store chain that has closed 44 Penney's stores nationwide, including four in Indiana.\nBetween the Martinsville and Bloomington stores, 150 people lost their jobs.\nAfter it announced in January that the store would close, J.C. Penney's held a series of closing sales, culminating during the store's final week, where markdowns went as high as 90 percent in an effort to empty the store of its merchandise. \nThe sale seemed to be working. By midday Saturday, the remaining stock fit into a 20 foot square area near the front of the store.\n"Just this last week, we have been very busy," acting store manager Mary Lynn Kinsel said of the rapidly emptying racks of clothes. "I don't know if it's word of mouth… It's amazing."\nThe progression of sale signs indicated the escalating discounts of the store's final days. Signs of "50 percent off sale price" gave way to "90 percent off lowest price marked." One table advertised shoes for a dollar a pair. Although the store originally planned to close at 5 p.m., Kinsel estimated it would run out of merchandise hours earlier.\nKinsel and a skeleton crew will come back to the store today and spend another seven to 10 days stripping the store's fixtures. Some of them will be sent to other Penney's stores, and eventually a public sale will be held to dispose of what remains.\nThe large store already looks deserted, with much of the shelving and other fixtures dismantled, leaving vast spaces where empty metal clothing racks huddled together along with employees watching the last few dozen shoppers browse through the lingering pairs of jeans, slacks, shirts and shoes. Some bargain hunters came away with $34 jeans marked down to $3.50.\nThe extra help required for the store closing was a boon for some IU students in need of short-term employment. Senior Staci Wilkinson will graduate next weekend. After the last store she was working at closed earlier this year, she needed a job for her last three months in Bloomington. She said a lot of college students at the store are graduating, and some of the older employees plan to retire.\nNot everyone has those options. Kinsel said some employees are being relocated to other Penney's stores -- as near as Bedford and as far away as Fairfax, Va. Others will seek work elsewhere.\n"Whoever gets these employees will be extremely lucky. They've just been fantastic associates," Kinsel said.\nWilkinson said the last week's feeding frenzy had been stressful.\n"It's been the worst experience," she said. "People have been trashing the fitting rooms."\nThe store closings have been one of several recent maneuvers by the troubled department store chain in the hopes of improving its financial position. In March, Penney's sold off its Direct Marketing Services branch. The $1.1 billion proceeds from that sale were expected to go towards debt reduction, J.C. Penney chief executive officer Allen Questrom said in a press release.