FARGO - The West Acres shopping mall JCPenney store has survived a first round of closings, as it was not among the 154 stores that the firm recently announced will be trimmed as part of restructuring under its Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
The corporation's stores in Bismarck, Minot, Grand Forks and Williston were also not on the closure list
The company had filed for bankruptcy May 15.
JCPenney announced that about 240 of its stores would be shuttered due to a faltering "transformation strategy” and economic wounds inflicted by the pandemic.
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Several other JCPenney stores in the region will be closed, including the store in Brookings, S.D., and four stores in Minnesota, including Coon Rapids, Maple Grove, Eden Prairie and in the Willmar Kandi Mall.
Store closing sales are expected to begin after entry of an order at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas (Corpus Christi) on June 11.
In a Thursday, June 4, news release, the company said sales for the first round of closings are expected to take 10-16 weeks.
The company said it had already reopened 500 of its roughly 850 stores as of June 4 as measures to restrict the transmission of COVID-19 have eased around the nation.
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It also has 11 supply chain facilities, which includes store merchandise distribution centers, regional warehouses and jcpenney.com fulfillment centers. The firm employs about 90,000 people in 49 states and Puerto Rico.
The company posted net sales of $10.7 billion in the 2019 fiscal year.
