Are all the Florida Keys’ Kmarts closing for good? Indications suggest most likely
Two venerable Kmart stores in the Florida Keys advertised temporary job openings on Friday.
“Temporary” because the listings for customer service reps, cashiers and fixture removal positions on the Transform Holdco website, the parent company of Kmart and Sears, are all marked “*Store Closing.”
In December, going out of business sales began at most of the 96 Sears and Kmart stores that were slated to close by February, including in South Florida.
But the Marathon and Key Largo locations were not included in that wave of closings announced in December. On Saturday, the Kmart.com store locator feature listed both stores as open, as well as a Key West location, and are not marked on the locator site as closing.
In addition, a February listing of closing stores posted by Sears Corp. listed the few remaining Kmarts that would still be open and these included the three Florida Keys stores. So did Brockstocks’ Feb. 28 report on remaining KMarts.
The Herald reached out to Transform Holdco by phone and email but received no response.
Kmart store associates on Saturday at the Key Largo and Marathon stores could not confirm whether the locations were closing for good and referred calls to store managers on Monday. While those two stores were open Saturday no one answered repeated calls to the Key West location.
The Marathon and Key Largo chamber of commerce offices were not officially made aware of the stores’ closings as of Saturday but, off the record, had heard buzz about pending closures of the three Keys Kmarts.
Kmart’s Key Largo store pulled out of the Chamber of Commerce two years ago, said Key Largo Chamber President Elizabeth Moscynski in an email to the Herald.
“There are a few other non-reliable sources that claim the stores are closing according to liquidators, however they do not mention their sources,” Moscynski said.
CEOs at the Marathon and Key West chambers were not available on Saturday.
But the indications of KMart’s Keys closings are there. Several departments in the Key Largo location have already seemed to shut, such as the gardening center.
“There were no ‘closing sale’ or ‘closing soon’ signs but the inventory looked less to me and there was more open space so I would not be surprised to learn of that happening very soon,” said Big Pine Key resident Jennifer Lefelar who shopped at the Marathon store on Friday with her 12-year-old daughter, Carly.
“Carly even made a comment about wishing it would become a future Target and that she can’t believe the Kmarts in the Keys were still open when so many other Kmarts have closed,” Lefelar said.
There are no Target stores in the Florida Keys.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
