Description
Kmart Corporation is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was incorporated in 1899 as S. S. Kresge Corporation and renamed Kmart Corporation in 1977. The first store with the Kmart name opened in 1962. At its peak in 1994, Kmart operated 2,486 stores globally, including 2,323 discount stores and Super Kmart Center locations in the United States. From 2005 through 2019, Kmart was a subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corporation. Since 2019, Kmart has been a subsidiary of Transform SR Brands LLC.
History
Early years
S. S. Kresge, the founder of the company that would become Kmart, met variety-store pioneer Frank Winfield Woolworth while working as a traveling salesman and selling to all 19 of Woolworth's stores at the time. In 1897 Kresge invested $6,700 saved from his job into a five-and-dime store in Memphis, Tennessee. He jointly owned the first store with his former tinware customer, John McCrory. Kresge and McCrory added a second store in downtown Detroit the following year. These were the first S.S. Kresge stores. After two years of partnership, he traded McCrory his share in the Memphis store, plus $3,000, for full ownership of the Detroit store, and formed the Kresge & Wilson Company with his brother-in-law, Charles J. Wilson.
In 1912, Kresge incorporated the S.S. Kresge Company in Delaware with eighty-five stores. In 1916, Kresge incorporated a new S.S. Kresge Company in Michigan and took over the operations of the original company; the new company in Michigan is the modern day Kmart company. The company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange on May 23, 1918. During World War I, Kresge experimented with raising the limit on prices in his stores to $1. By 1924, Kresge was worth approximately $375 million and owned real estate of the approximate value of $100 million. Growth early in the 20th century remained brisk, with 257 stores in 1924, rising to 597 stores by 1929. Kresge retired as president in 1925. The Great Depression reduced profitability and resulted in store closings, with the number rising to 682 in 1940. After the war, shopping patterns changed and many customers moved out of the cities into the suburbs.
2019–present
The sale of 202 Kmart stores to Transform Holdco was finalized in February 2019, with the remaining Kmart locations liquidated to partially pay off Sears Holdings creditors.
In May 2019, it was revealed that Kmart would close its store in Walla Walla, Washington in July, making it the first post-bankruptcy closure for the brand since being bought by ESL. On August 6, 2019, TransformCo announced plans to close five additional stores by October 2019. At the time of the announcement, TransformCo also added that it "cannot rule out additional store closures in the near term." Between August 5 and 23, 2019, it was later announced that four more Kmarts would close.
On August 29, 2019, the massive closure of 77 Kmart stores was announced, with the stores being closed by December 15, 2019. This was the first mass-closing post-bankruptcy for the brand since being bought by ESL. According to the announcement, there would be 115 locations remaining by December 2019. The company was expected to close more than 100 stores by January 2020.
In November 2019, Kmart announced the closing of 45 stores in February 2020. The Wall Street Journal reported that Transformco "would continue to evaluate its retail footprint, suggesting that additional closures are possible." On February 6, 2020, Kmart announced it would close 15 more stores.
The last Kmart location in North Carolina, located in Kill Devil Hills closed on April 11, 2020. In February 2021, Target Corporation announced that they had purchased the building and plan to turn it into a Target store, which will open in 2022. Initially, Target wanted to demolish the store, but announced they would remodel the store. Construction began in November 2021 and is scheduled to finish during 2022. The store will be smaller than normal Target stores, which average at 130,000 Sq ft in size.
In May 2020, Kmart announced plans to close two additional stores. Subsequently, in June 2020, the company announced their intention to close seven additional stores by the end of the year: one in Maryland, two in Puerto Rico, two in Pennsylvania, and two in California.
On February 3, 2021, it was announced that Kmart would close seven stores, including its last store in Maryland, in Silver Spring, its last store in Massachusetts, in Hyannis, which was the last in New England overall, its last two stores in Pennsylvania, in Kingston and Willow Street, which left Kmart with a presence in 6 of the 50 states, and the Kmart in Belleville, New Jersey by mid-April. Two additional closings in California were announced, in Watsonville and South Lake Tahoe. Kmart locations in Freedom and South Lake Tahoe both closed on August 22, 2021. This left the store in Grass Valley as the last Kmart in the state. In Florida, stores in Marathon and Key Largo both closed in May 2021, while the store in Hollywood closed in 2019. In New York City, the Kmart in Astor Place on 770 Broadway in Manhattan closed July 11, 2021,[ leaving two locations in The Bronx; one of the Bronx locations, along with the Kmart in White Plains, are scheduled to close at an unspecified time in the near future as of fall 2021. On October 19, 2021, it was announced the last store in California, in Grass Valley, would close by December 19, 2021, and will be replaced by a Target store. On October 20, 2021, it was confirmed that the last Kmart store in New York City, on Baychester Avenue in The Bronx, would be closing in December.
As of August 17, 2021, The New York Times lists the number of open stores at 17. The chain is expected to have only twelve stores left, six of them in the continental US, by the end of 2021.
The Kmart store in Marshall in the chain's birth state of Michigan, the last Big Kmart store operating in the United States, closed on November 21, 2021.
