Another Massachusetts Sears Location Caught In Closings

Another Sears is biting the dust in Massachusetts as the former department store mainstay continues its drastic "strategic assessment" across the country. Parent company Sears Holdings announced Thursday that in late Jan. 2018 it will close the Sears at the Berkshire Mall in Lanesborough, along with 17 other Sears and 45 other Kmart stores.

Several Massachusetts Kmart locations were shuttered this year, but there are no additional ones on the most recent list of closings.

Lanesborough is a couple of miles north of Pittsfield and a couple of miles east of the New York border. If you happen to make it out there, a liquidation sale starts Nov. 9.

It doesn't sound like a big deal for Eastern and Central Mass. for a store roughly 150 miles from Boston to be closing, but the bigger picture is that now fewer than two dozen Sears stores remain in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Sears locations were mostly spared in previous rounds of closings announced this year by Sears Holdings. A Sears in Swansea and Kmart locations in Fairhaven, South Attleboro, Fitchburg, Springfield and Newburyport were among more than 100 closings nationwide in 2017.

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With Amazon and other online retailers taking a bigger piece of the commerce pie every year, it's unknown if traditional brick-and-mortar retailers will be able to compete in the long run.

"Sears Holdings continues its strategic assessment of the productivity of our Kmart and Sears store base and will continue to right size our store footprint in number and size," Sears Holdings said in a release. "In the process, as previously announced we will continue to close some unprofitable stores as we transform our business model so that our physical store footprint and our digital capabilities match the needs and preferences of our members."

Macy's closed Brockton and Taunton locations this year. Youth clothing store Bebe closed up shop this year, and Gymboree closed several Massachusetts locations after filing for bankruptcy.

AP Photo/Charlie Riedel