Sears Current Owner to Close Kāne‘ohe Store and Auto Center on April 28

Windward Mall shoppers have a couple more weeks to make final purchases at the once-thriving department store.

Attention Sears shoppers, the 37-year-old Windward Mall store began its final sale on April 15, the deadline to submit federal taxes, as the longtime department store prepares to shut its doors for the final time later this month in Kāne‘ohe.

The store will close on April 28 with the auto center closing even sooner, on April 17, according to a national Sears spokesperson.

Parent company Sears Holdings has been in bankruptcy proceedings since October and the successor company, Transform Holdco LLC, “has made the difficult decision not to acquire the current lease for the Sears store and Sears Auto Center in Kāne‘ohe,” according to an email from a company spokesperson.

The exact number of employees affected was not released but the company says those who are eligible will receive severance and can apply for open positions at other area stores.
The largest Sears store in Hawai‘i closed at Ala Moana Center to make way for the ‘Ewa wing expansion. A smaller appliance store opened there.

The other Sears stores not affected by this week’s news are: Pearlridge Center in Aiea; at Queen Ka‘ahumanu Center on Maui; and Prince Kūhiō Plaza in Hilo on the Big Island.

Sears was the first store to open at Windward Mall, later joined by Liberty House and J.C. Penney as the three original anchors to Windward Mall. The Sears store opened in April, 1982 with festivities that included a congressman, mayor and the lieutenant governor, entertainers from area schools and hundreds of people who waited in line to check out the 130,296 square-foot-store. But in recent years, the store has continued to scale back as the national chain struggled.

This article appears in the April 2019 issue of HONOLULU Magazine.