LIHUE — Sports Authority stores in Hawaii are not going to close, said Erik Walter, manager for the Sports Authority at the Kukui Grove Center. Concern over the store’s closure rose last week after the Wall Street Journal reported that
LIHUE — Sports Authority stores in Hawaii are not going to close, said Erik Walter, manager for the Sports Authority at the Kukui Grove Center.
Concern over the store’s closure rose last week after the Wall Street Journal reported that a last-ditch effort to save the company failed after Sports Authority could not line up funding or appease creditors, according to The Associated Press.
“It didn’t tell the whole story,” Walter said. “According to what we were told, the Hawaii stores will be restructuring, not closing.”
AP said Sports Authority will shutter its big-box stores since the self-described “nation’s preeminent full line sporting goods chain” is getting out of the game for good.
Details of the restructuring were not available, but Walter said the Kauai store was meeting budget projections.
Sports Authority opened its 43,000-square-foot Kukui Grove store on May 16, 2014.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Sports Authority was strapped with more than $1.1 billion in debt and filed for bankruptcy protection in March. The newspaper reported the retailer planned to trim its operations and restructure while looking for buyers as an alternate path.
Some of the stores were being closed when the bankruptcy filing was done in March with others to follow. A May 16 auction is set for the bulk of the Sports Authority operations.
