Thread regarding JCPenney layoffs

Yes it's closing.

Ty!

EATONTOWN - JCPenney, an anchor tenant since the early days of the Monmouth Mall, won't be part of the property's redevelopment and is expected to close, Mayor Anthony Talerico Jr. said Tuesday.
The mall's owner, Kushman Cos., has proposed knocking down the department store and replacing it with 1,000 one- and two-bedroom apartments, Talerico said.
The mall's developers laid out their plans at a June 22 council meeting, part of a long effort to bring housing to the mall. The council would need to approve the final concept by ordinance, which could come by the end of the year, Talerico said.
The regional mall, like most of its peers, has been under pressure for the past decade as consumers first turned to online shopping and then were sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic.
JCPenney on Tuesday was touting sales of up to 50% off at the Eatontown store as employees folded clothes and worked the checkout line.
Two separate customers said they were told by employees that the store would close in October.
"I really don't like the idea of them closing," Carlo Jones, 61, of Asbury Park said. "It's one of the few stores that I shop at. I'm kind of sad about it."
Neither J.C. Penney Co., the Plano, Texas-based parent company of JCPenney, nor Monmouth Mall officials responded to requests for comment. The retailer also operates stores at the Ocean County Mall in Toms River and the Freehold Raceway Mall in Freehold Township.
JCPenney has been a Monmouth Mall mainstay. The company opened a 225,000-square-foot store here in September 1976, shortly after the Monmouth Shopping Center expanded, changed its name to the Monmouth Mall, and became one of the Garden State's biggest enclosed malls.
JCPenney joined other anchors, including Hahne's, Abraham & Straus and Bamberger's. The retailer included an automotive center, a beauty salon, a restaurant and a home decorating studio. And its opening was heralded in advertisements offering $88 black-and-white television sets with a combination VHF/UHF antenna; $10 flare leg western jeans; and a $95 four-piece suit with texturized woven polyester.
More recently, both the retailer and the mall have run into obstacles.
J.C. Penney, unable to find a reinvention strategy that could work, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020 and planned to close more than a quarter of its 846 stores to pay off debt and stay in business.
The retailer emerged from bankruptcy in December 2020 with new owners — Simon Property Group and Brookfield Asset Management Inc.
Monmouth Mall has been trying to reinvent itself as well, starting with a plan announced in 2016 to bring housing to the mall. Eventually a plan to bring 700 apartments was approved in 2018.
After finding the mall had vacancy rates of at least 20% and a number of tenants paying below-market rate rent, Eatontown officials last year voted to include the mall in a redevelopment zone.
Kushner Cos., which last year bought out Brookfield to take sole ownership of the mall, has proposed an overhaul that includes a combination of retail, restaurants, housing and offices.
The mall remains home for two department stores, Boscov's and Macy's, but a new vision is starting to emerge.
Long-time anchor Lord & Taylor closed in 2019 and sits empty. Next door, RWJBarnabas Health this spring opened the 82,000-square-foot Anne Vogel Family Care and Wellness Building. And nearby, Kushner Cos. in March received approval from the town to demolish a three-level, 953-space parking garage and replace it with a surface parking lot that will have 303 spaces and 13 electric car-charging stations — a sign that its plan would include fewer retailers.
Talerico said the apartment project proposed for the JCPenney site would include affordable housing alongside market-rate units.