JCPenney Is Closing Several Stores Across 8 States. Is Your State Affected?

JCPenney has announced that it is closing several stores in eight different states. The move is an attempt to consolidate its diminishing profits. Let’s look at what we know about this latest move.

Full List of JCPenney Closures

According to Axios, the department store giant revealed to the outlet that it would close another eight of its more than 650 existing stores in 2025, building on a year of similar consolidations.

“While we do not have plans to significantly reduce our store count, we expect a handful of JCPenney stores to close by mid-year,” a company spokesperson told Axios.

According to research from business consultancy SB360, these are the stores projected to close this year:

• California: The Shops at Tanforan, 1122 El Camino Real, San Bruno
• Colorado: The Shops at Northfield, 8568 E. 49th Ave., Denver
• Idaho: Pine Ridge Mall, 4201 Yellowstone Ave., Pocatello
• Kansas: West Ridge Mall, 1821 SW Wanamaker Road, Topeka
• Maryland: Annapolis Mall, 1695 Annapolis Mall Road, Annapolis
• North Carolina: Asheville Mall, 3 S. Tunnel Road, Asheville
• New Hampshire: Mall at Fox Run, 50 Fox Run Road, Newington
• West Virginia: Charleston Town Center, 401 Lee St. E., Charleston

Retail Dive spoke with GlobalData Managing Director Neil Saunders after the company’s third-quarter results were released in December. At that time, Saunders said: “There are some good things happening at JCPenney and management is trying to move the business forward, but it all feels like they’re trying to run up a fast moving down escalator right now and progress is very limited.”

Since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2020, JCPenney’s store count has decreased from roughly 850 to around 650.

However, the business remains bullish about the SPARC merger’s potential. Despite disappointing financial results in recent months, Marc Rosen — who was previously the CEO of JCPenney and is now CEO of Catalyst Brands — stated that the combination will allow the companies to “leverage our resources and best-in-class industry talent to grow our brands even further.”

New Merger

The aforementioned “SPARC merger” refers to the recent merger of the JCPenney brand with Aéropostale’s parent company to create a new company called “Catalyst Brands.“

Catalyst Brands, along with JCPenney and its exclusive private brands like Stafford, Arizona, and Liz Claiborne, brings together the SPARC Group’s brands, which include Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Eddie Bauer, Lucky Brand, and Nautica. With over 60 million customers served in the previous three years, Catalyst Brands has a large consumer reach thanks to a solid distribution network that includes owned stores, e-commerce platforms, and wholesale partners.

Kevin Harper, a former Walmart executive, will become Catalyst Brands’ chief operating officer. Marisa Thalberg, former JCPenney consultancy chief marketing and brand officer, is currently the chief customer and marketing officer of Catalyst Brands.

“Catalyst Brands brings together the rich heritage of six unique brands with modern energy and a new vision for success. The word ‘catalyst’ reflects our drive to accelerate innovation and energy and amplify the impact of this powerhouse portfolio. Together, we bring scale, expertise and broad appeal to customers across America,” Rosen said in a statement accompanying the press release.

“For us, customers are at the heart of what we do. We have a shared belief that customers deserve fashion and style of great quality for any and every moment in life. We will leverage our resources and best-in-class industry talent to grow our brands further,” he added.

JCPenney and SPARC Group’s partnership appears to have a promising future. However, not all business mergers are successful, as the recently failed merger of Kroger and Albertsons revealed.

According to Progressive Grocer, Albertsons chose to withdraw from the merger and sue Kroger after it was revealed that the companies’ merger had been halted by two separate injunctions: one from the King County Superior Court for the State of Washington and the other from the United States District Court in Oregon.