JCPenney will close its WestShore Plaza store
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jun 4, 2020

JCPenney will vacate its best real estate in the Tampa Bay region.

The JCPenney store at WestShore Plaza is among 154 locations across the U.S. that will close, the Plano, Texas-based retailer said Thursday. JCPenney, based in Plano, Texas, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in mid-May.

“While closing stores is always an extremely difficult decision, our store optimization strategy is vital to ensuring we emerge from both Chapter 11 and the Covid-19 pandemic as a stronger retailer with greater financial flexibility to allow us to continue serving our loyal customers for decades to come,” Jill Soltau, CEO of JCPenney, said in a statement. “I am incredibly grateful to our talented associates for their ongoing dedication and their passion for meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations during this difficult and uncertain time. All impacted associates will be treated with the utmost consideration and respect.”

The WestShore Plaza store is one of nine JCPenney will close in Florida. The retailer will also close its store at Bradenton's Desoto Square mall. It's not known how many employees are affected.

JCPenney was struggling long before the global coronavirus pandemic. It's likely that a number of companies — especially department stores and mall-based retailers — that were already struggling to stay in the black will never recover from state-ordered closures of non-essential retail to slow the virus' spread.

Liquidation sales will begin after June 11 and could take 10 to 16 weeks to complete, JCPenney said. The retailer did not disclose how many employees will be affected.

Washington Prime Group, the owner of WestShore Plaza, owns JCPenney's real estate. The mall owner is already planning a major redevelopment on the former Sears property at the mall, and JCPenney was also sitting on valuable urban land. The JCPenney property opens up additional redevelopment opportunity at the mall, though retail redevelopment — which has long depended on restaurants and entertainment concepts — is more difficult in a post-Covid world, real estate experts say.