Anita Miszlai shopped the Carlsbad Bealls for more than 20 years and was saddened to hear of its closure.
On Thursday, a large sign that read “store closing” was hanging in the window of the department store on Pearce Street, alongside signs boasting of sales offering 30 to 50 percent off.
Miszlai was headed in to see if there was anything left “calling her name” for what could be the last time.
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The corporate owner of Bealls department stores filed for bankruptcy last month, and it remained unclear how the store in the Carlsbad Mall would be impacted.
Last year, the store announced it was to be converted to a Gordmans, but after Stage Stores Inc. filed for bankruptcy in May, those plans could be cancelled.
An employee at the Carlsbad store said the store had reopened after being closed in March by the State of New Mexico which ordered the temporary closure of all retail stores in the state to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Miszlai said she knew Bealls for its quality of merchandise, where she would buy clothes and other items for her family over the decades.
She worried she’d have to travel more than an hour north to Roswell for a similar shopping experience now that Bealls was apparently closing.
“This is my store. I love this store,” Miszlai said. “I’m very disappointed. I don’t where I’ll go. I’ll be very said when it finally closes. We need a nice store that has everything.”
The store, and hundreds across the country were reopened by Stage Stores after the closure of retailers in New Mexico in March, read a news release, to liquidate its assets.
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Houston-based Stage Stores, which owns and operates Bealls along with other chain department stores such as Goody’s and Palais Royale said about 557 stores were reopened on May 15 and 67 by May 28.
The remaining stores would likely be opened by June 4, the release read, as the company sells off its remaining inventory and liquidates its assets.
Stage Stores first bought Gordmans in 2017, and announced in 2019 the then-planned conversion of about 700 department stores to Gordmans by the middle of 2020.
Jeff Campbell, director of marketing and business development for the Carlsbad Department of Development said it was unknown if the plans to re-brand the Carlsbad Bealls as a Gordmans were still on going or if the store would close altogether.
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Michael Glazer, president of Stage Stores said the bankruptcy and the company’s financial struggles in a market already challenged by online shopping were worsened by the pandemic when stores across the nation were closed for several months as COVID-19 spread throughout the U.S.
“This is a very difficult announcement and it was a decision that we reached only after exhausting every possible alternative. Over the last several months, we had been taking significant steps to attempt to strengthen our financial position and find an independent path forward,” Glazer said.
“However, the increasingly challenging market environment was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which required us to temporarily close all of our stores and furlough the vast majority of our associates. Given these conditions, we have been unable to obtain necessary financing and have no choice but to take these actions.”
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In its petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy filed on March 10, Stage Stores reported about $1.71 billion in assets and about $1.01 billion in debts.
Amid its bankruptcy filing and “winding down” of operations, Stage Stores was also seeking bids for the sale of the company or any of its assets.
“We appreciate the willingness of our landlords and vendors to work constructively with us to try and avoid this outcome,” Glazer said. “We hope that their efforts and the actions we have taken to reposition the business over the last several months will help attract the right partner who is interested in our off-price concept.”
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History of Stage Stores
- 1920s — Palais Royal and Bealls are founded as Family Owned Businesses.
- 1988 — Three Bealls Brothers merged with Palais Royal to form Specialty Retailers Inc. (SRI), a private company based in Houston.
- 1992 — SRI acquired 76 store retail chain Fashion Bar of Denver, whose stores included a Juniors’ chain called Stage.
- 1994 — 45 Beall-Ladymon stores were acquired and the names were changed to Stage.
- 1996 — SRI acquired 34 Uhlman’s stores in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan.
- 1996 — The company went public under the name of Stage Stores, Inc.
- 1997 — Stage Stores purchased 246 store chain C.R. Anthony Company located in the South Central US and reopened under the Bealls and Stage logos.
- 2001 — Stage Stores is reorganized.
- 2003 — Stage Stores acquired Peebles, Inc. which operated 136 stores in 17 states, maintaining the Peebles name and administrative office in South Hill, Virginia.
- 2004 — Stage Stores exceeded $1.0 Billion in sales volume.
- 2006 — Stage Stores acquired the BC Moore chain of 78 locations in 4 states. Sixty-nine of these stores were reopened under the Peebles name and the remaining nine stores were closed.
- 2009 — Stage purchased the Goody’s name through the Goody’s bankruptcy auction. The Company began using the Goody’s name in select markets in which there is strong customer awareness and recognition of the name.
- 2010 — Stage Stores launched its eCommerce website.
- 2012 — Stage Stores launched its new private label credit card loyalty program with enhanced. cardholder benefits; launch was accompanied by reissue of over 2 million credit cards.
- 2013 — Stage Stores consolidated its South Hill administrative office into its Houston headquarters.
- 2013 — Stage Stores replatformed its eCommerce website with enhanced functionality; site goes live in time for holiday shopping period.
- 2016 — Stage Stores launched Style Circle Rewards, to encourage and reward customer loyalty for both private label credit cardcardholders and non-cardholders.
- 2017 — Stage Stores entered the off-price segment with strategic Gordmans Acquisition.
- 2018 — Stage began testing the conversion of department stores to Gordmans off-price stores.
- 2019 — Stage announced long-term strategy to convert the full chain of department stores to Gordmans off-price stores, with a goal of reaching approximately 700 total off-price stores by mid-2020.
Adrian Hedden can be reached at 575-628-5516, achedden@currentargus.com or @AdrianHedden on Twitter.
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