The latest job count:
• Chick-fil-A building restaurant at Bridgewater Falls: 65 to 75 new jobs expected;
• Interstate Warehousing chooses Hamilton for a $14 million expansion: 25 new jobs expected;
• Greenwood Fuels LLC received Job Creation Tax Credit to locate in Hamilton: 29 new jobs expected;
• Advanced Design Solutions Inc. received Job Creation Tax Credit to consider Middletown location: 50 new jobs expected;
• SunCoke Energy to take applications in January for hourly workers of Middletown Coke Co.: about new 80 jobs;
• Kmart to close April 3: approximately 79 jobs lost;
• FedEx to close end of January in West Chester Twp.: more than 200 jobs lost;
• Pella Corp. to close first half of next year in Fairfield: about 200 jobs lost;
• Marsh Supermarket Inc. closed Dec. 15 on Erie Highway in Hamilton: unknown number of jobs lost.
HAMILTON —The Kmart store at 1780 S. Erie Highway will be closing April 3, eliminating 79 jobs, according to company officials.
Kimberly Freely, a spokeswoman for Sears Holding Corp., the parent company of Kmart, said store associates were informed Tuesday of the closing. A notice under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act was received by Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Wednesday, outlining the job losses.
A going-out-of-business sale is set to start Jan. 16, and the store will be vacated by April 20, Freely said.
“The store is closing because the lease is not being redone at that location,” she said.
Leases can be renewed or not renewed for a variety of reasons, but Freely said she didn’t have specifics. However, Freely was quoted in a Wisconsin newspaper Wednesday, saying Kmart would be closing six locations in Ohio, Utah, New Jersey and Illinois due to poor performance.
Freely said qualified employees would be offered severance and others would be notified of job openings they can apply for at nearby locations.
The Hamilton location was the last remaining Kmart in Butler County, according to the company’s website. A location on Roosevelt Boulevard in Middletown closed in November 2009, and the closest remaining stores are in Harrison and Springboro.
Kmart is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sears Holdings Corp., which has 3,900 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
While Kmart stores saw increased profitability, Sears reported its third quarter losses nearly doubled due to weak sales of clothing and appliances at its namesake stores.
Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2551 or clevingston@coxohio.com.
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