The Kmart store in West Lebanon might not seem special, but it has a singular status.
With the recent announcement about stores slated for closing, the Kmart on Route 12A in West Lebanon will soon be the sole remaining Kmart in New Hampshire, Vermont or Maine.
Kmart was once as familiar in New England as a lobster roll. After the latest closings, there will be four stores left in Massachusetts and one store in Watertown, Conn. New York will have 16 stores.
“It’s our location and customers,” store manager Carolyn Adams told me the other day when I stopped in to find out what it is about the Kmart that keeps it going after so many have closed.
At its peak in the 1990s, Kmart boasted thousands of stores across the country.
Earlier this month Transformco, the company that was formed to acquire Sears and Kmart assets out of bankruptcy, said that following the latest closings there would be a total of 182 Sears and Kmart stores. (It didn’t specify how many of the 182 are Kmarts.)
The Sears store in Upper Valley Plaza closed in 2017.
Adams said the West Lebanon’s store location near the Interstate 89-Interstate 91 junction captures travelers from Canada, New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, and that helps ensure a flow of customers that other locations don’t have.
“And it’s New Hampshire,” she noted, “so there’s no sales tax.”
Kmart has suffered through more than one bankruptcy — most recently under former owner Sears Holdings — and the nosedive of traditional retail due to online shopping. The brand has adhered to its formula as a discount box-store-of-all-things selling apparel, home furnishings, appliances, sports equipment and toys while the trend for many chain retailers like TJ Maxx and Target has been to focus on a narrower, slightly costlier product selection.
The West Lebanon store survived flooding from Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, which required $2.5 million in repairs. Kmart’s in-store pharmacy closed almost exactly two years ago in 2017 and the Little Caesars pizza counter in the store closed in 2018.
Some of the West Lebanon Kmart’s 38 full- and part-time employees have worked at the store for more than 30 years, noted Mary Williams, who has worked at the store for “only” 14 years.
“People like us and trust us,” said Williams, a Plainfield resident. “They like what’s always been.”
Adams, who joined the West Lebanon store this past spring when she transferred from another location in upstate New York, said she didn’t have any inside information on how this Kmart has avoided the ax.
“We don’t know how (management) makes the decisions” about which stores to close, she said. “They don’t tell us.”
But, she said, a “full semi every week” still pulls up to the loading dock at the West Lebanon store with supplies to restock — two semis last week in advance of the holiday shopping season.
How long the West Lebanon store can remain open, however, is anyone’s guess, given the downward trends in retail outlets and particular corporate issues with the parent company.
During my visit I noticed that many of the shelves appeared thin on merchandise and there were more employees on the floor than customers. Only one person was needed to man the checkout lanes.
“It used to be really bustling but seems sad now,” said Debra Jillette, who worked “in nearly every department of the store” from 2012 to 2015, including the Little Caesars counter.
Jillette, now residing in Gorham, N.H., said she enjoyed working at Kmart because of her co-workers but also wonders why the shelves do not appear to be as stocked as they did during her time there.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if that will be the next one to go in the next round of closings,” said Jillette, who also worked at the former Lebanon Village Market and now works at Grant’s Shop’n Save about 15 miles south of Mount Washington.
A spokesman for Transformco declined to comment.