Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 7, 1992 TAG: 9202070117
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SALES UP, AT LAST...
D.A. Kelly's apparel shop at Valley View Mall will shut for good tonight.Although the store's sales increased last year and the shop continued to be profitable in January, success "didn't come around soon enough," said Lee Quinn, the Carthage, N.C., company's director of store operations. "We got tired of waiting."
The shop on the upper level of the Roanoke mall is one of 11 that D.A. Kelly's Inc. is closing as part of its financial reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy law.
A store in Martinsville will shut within a month, as will one in Chesapeake, the company said. Danville will be the only Virginia location for the women's clothing chain as it cuts back to 22 shops.
The D.A. Kelly's closing brings to seven the number of small shops that have shut at Valley View since the first of the year.
Sozo Christian bookstore, which put up a "closed for inventory" sign this week, is bankrupt. Its parent, Greendale Inc. of Roanoke, filed for Chapter 7 liquidation on Thursday. The company listed assets of $99,000 and liabilities of $302,000, according to its attorney, Thomas B. Dickenson.
Most of the debt represents investment by Greendale owners, David Stroud and David Black. Sozo opened in October 1990.
Even with the closings, Valley View manager Joe Marx said the mall's vacancy rate is only around 10 percent. He also said the mall is in "pretty good shape" in its collection of rents.
Marx said some closings, such as LaVogue and Paul Harris women's clothing stores and Dulci shoes, were anticipated.
He had only a "suspicion," however, that Royal Jewelers was leaving. Royal locked up and packed up about 8 o'clock one evening last week. A sign at the site, which is cluttered with watch display packaging, gives an out-of-state phone number for customers to call.
Zales Jewelry also closed last week at Valley View as part of a retrenching the company announced several weeks ago.
Jim Fritts, manager of Henebry's jewelry store at Valley View, said the failed jewelers couldn't blame the economy for everything. Jewelry sales weren't any harder hit by the slow economy than other merchandise, he said.
"It's a matter of having people at the right time selling the right kind of merchandise," Fritts said.
He said his January sales were not up to budget, but they were better than last January's.
The cost of operating at Valley View Mall was one reason the D.A. Kelly's Roanoke shop was culled, said Quinn.
Quinn said Valley View's owner, Faison & Associates of Charlotte N.C., had every reason to expect high rents at the mall because it had developed a nice facility. But the volume of business that D.A. Kelly's Inc. expected in the Roanoke Valley "hasn't panned out yet," he said.
Valley View and Tanglewood Mall, in Southwest Roanoke County, may be "splitting the pie" too much, he said.
The D.A. Kelly's closing strands six employees. Indra Buitrago, the store's first assistant manager, said workers began searching for new jobs as soon as they were told about the situation eight days ago. One has been hired by another Valley View store. Buitrago said she is confident that she, too, can find a comparable job in Roanoke.
Buitrago's optimism about the job market is an example of the mixed picture that retail sales are presenting in this economy.
Chip Lazarus, president of the eight-store Lazarus apparel company, said his same-store sales in January ranged from increases of 13 percent to declines of 5 percent.
Sales at the chain's Tanglewood, Valley View and Towers shopping center stores were within 10 percent of each other, he said.
Lazarus said the weather was a factor in business at his stores, which rely heavily on outerwear sales.
"We had an extremely warm fall and early winter, which caused us to hold inventory where it was," said Lazarus. He said a flurry of outerwear business in late December and early January depleted stock and the stores didn't reorder because it was too late in the season.
However, the Lazarus stores are stocked for "an encouraging spring," the owner said.
JoAnn Grissom, manager of American Eagle Outfitters at Valley View, also is anticipating spring sales even though her store did "real well" in 1991 and last month.
"We made our projections. Last year was bad to begin with, so going up against last year's figures, you should be doing better," she said.