Burbank Babies R Us One of Seven Illinois Stores Set To Close

BURBANK, IL -- If you have a lot of baby showers coming up or a little one on the way, Babies R Us in Burbank is closing and will start liquidating inventory in the coming months. The Burbank Babies R Us located at 7750 South Cicero Ave. is one of seven Illinois Babies R Us or Toys R Us slated for closure, according to court documents filed in a Virginia court. The toy retailer plans to close 182 stores, about 20 percent of its stores across the nation.

The mass closures will be rolled out in February through mid-April. Both Toys R Us and Babies R Us will offer going-out-of-business sales with steep discounts on inventory. Also not known is if the Babies R Us store will be combined with the existing Burbank Toys R Us store in the Summit Shopping Center at 8148 S. Cicero Ave. The Burbank Toys R Us location did not appear on the company’s store closure list.

David Brandon, chairman and CEO of the toy retailer, said the brand is reinventing itself, and that requires some "tough decisions about our priorities and focus.
"The reinvention of our brands requires that we make tough decisions about our priorities and focus," Brandon said in a letter posted on the company's website late Tuesday.

A court still has to sign off on the mass closures.

The company, based in Wayne, New Jersey, has about 880 stores in the U.S. Existing stores will be combined into Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores.

The moves come four months after Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid declining sales and climbing debt.

Savvy shoppers can take advantage of going-out-of-business sales, which are slated to to begin in February. Other Illinois stores slated to close include:

• 1610 Deerfield Rd., Highland Park
• 16 East Golf Rd., Schaumburg
• 295 Center Drive, Vernon Hills
• 5001 Lincoln Highway, Matteson
• 6420 W. Fullerton, Bricktown
• 5660 Touhy Avenue, Niles

While Illinois is losing multiple stores, other states were even harder hit. In California alone, 27 stores are planned to be shuttered. Florida has 11 locations due for closure, New Jersey has 12 and New York has 15.
You can find a complete list of locations here.

Patch National Editor Shannon Antinori contributed to this report.

Photo credit: Diana Haronis | Getty Images