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Steve and Barry's to close Cape Girardeau storeThursday, August 28, 2008The Steve & Barry’s discount clothing store in West Park Mall in Cape Girardeau will be closing, company officials confirmed Thursday afternoon. "BHY S&B Holdings announced that it intends to run a smaller base of Steve & Barry’s stores, better positioning the company to reach its profitability goals," company spokesman Howard Schacter said in a written statement. The company had no comment on when the Cape Girardeau store would close or the fate of the employees. West Park Mall officials declined to comment. Steve & Barry’s was purchased Tuesday for $163 million by BHY S&B Holdings LLC, a newly formed affiliate of investment firms Bay Harbour Management and York Capital Management. The company had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection July 9. Under the terms of the purchase agreement, the majority of Steve & Barry’s 276 stores in 39 states will continue to serve customers nationwide, offering collections created with entertainers and athletes such as Sarah Jessica Parker, Venus Williams, Amanda Bynes, Laird Hamilton, Ben Wallace and Bubba Watson. All of the celebrities maintain a licensing relationship with Steve & Barry’s. BHY S&B Holdings has a history in turnarounds of troubled or bankrupt corporations. The company’s holdings include the former Aladdin Casino, which now operates in Las Vegas as Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino, and Barneys New York. The 80,000-square-foot store first opened in Cape Girardeau on Oct. 14, 2005, occupying an anchor spot that had sat vacant since ShopKo closed its doors in 2001. At the time of its opening, the store had 67 stores in 26 states, with plans to open another 70 by the end of 2005. But by July 1, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was considering closing as many as 100 stores in the near future, if it did not find emergency financing. According to the Journal, Steve & Barry’s business model depends on one-time large cash payments to the company from mall operators to open stores on their properties. The total profit margin for the company’s $1 billion in annual sales was 1 to 3 percent, the Journal reported, and those profits began drying up as retail property owners retrench in the uncertain economy. While company officials did confirm the Cape Girardeau store would close, they had no comment on the fate of its other underperforming stores. 335-6611, extension 137 Comments  Note: The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, please Login or Create an account first, and then you will be able to flag a comment as objectionable. Please also note that those who post comments on semissourian.com may do so using a screen name, which may or may not reflect a website user's actual name. Readers should be careful not to assign comments to real people who may have names similar to screen names. Refrain from obscenity in your comments, and to keep discussions civil, don't say anything in a way your grandmother would be ashamed to read.
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How many jobs will be lost with this?
Probably only a handful at the most. There were hardly any employees working when I was in their last week.
I was in there recently also and was disappointed in the selection. I realize they have inexpensive clothing, but most of it was cheap junk.
It was always cheap junk. The clothing was also itchy and had a peculiar smell.
Maybe it's closing because the store smelled like burned plastic and body odor.
Just a guess...
The reporter needs to ask Mall officials what they plan on doing to recruit another anchor store?
Burnt plastic and body odor? It is no wonder that the Cape Walmart is still open! Surely you would have more trash around there than at Steve and Barry's!
I can assure you they are not good paying jobs, just another low end retail wage job.
Cheap junk sure, but it was still a great place to do some quick Christmas shopping. Sorry to see them go.
The two times I walked through (the second was just the quickest way to get to the Chinese joint, since the first time I noted the "cheap junk" previously mentioned by other posts), it smelled terrible. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it was musty & nasty. I'm surprised it lasted this long.
A Dillards, Linens N Things, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc. would be nice additions...
Although alot of their clothing was "cheap", it makes great work clothes for my other half! I'm going to miss that! I really hate to hear of anything closing in our mall. The mall currently has so little to offer and now will have even less! I don't quite remember how long that section of the store sat empty before S&B moved it, but it would not suprise me to see it sitting empty again for some time! There really is no incentive (IMO) for anything new to open a store in the Cape mall.
Just_me - I would LOVE to see a Linens & Things or Bed Bath & Beyond in Cape....sadly I don't see it coming anytime soon, but I'd be very happy to be proved wrong!
The quality of clothes at Steve & Barry's was comparable to anything else you'd find at a mall these days -- at least they had the sense to sell it for what it's worth.
With the economy tanking, and with retailers scaling back their new-store openings, I'd expect that anchor spot to stay open for a while. It's a shame, because I thought Steve & Barry's would be there for a while.
I work at Steve and Barry's. Not this store, but another and I came across this article through google.
I'm honestly surprised at the crass replies that this article is getting (I realize that not all of them have been and I'd hope that those who weren't, know that I'm not talking about them). I've worked for Steve and Barry's for almost 2 years, and it's my only source of income. My store too, is closing and I don't know where I'm going to find another job. I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent, electric, phone bill, Gas. What many people don't know is that three months ago Steve and Barry's cut every store's hours back drastically. Thats why there haven't been as many associates in the store as normal. They were trying to save some money and run the stores on the bare minimum hours that they could. This made a lot of the regular assocaites look for other jobs. After that the New York office fired almost 500 people in one month. So, to answer the question of how many people will lose jobs? Hundreds, if not Thousands. They decided to close 100 stores. This really isn't something to be laughed at. Thats hundreds of people without income to support themselves or their families. The pay may not have been what you'd get for working at a warehouse, but it was money that was badly needed. Also the reason there wasn't much in your stores? Steve and Barry's couldn't afford to send new product out until they got bought. IF you're lucky enough to be in a store not closing you'll be seeing new product soon. We haven't received a full shipment in over 6 months at my store. We worked with what we were given and we still brought in a profit.
From an outsider's viewpoint closing 100 stores isn't good because now there are many low-income families that won't be able to afford coats for their children this year. When all the Steve and Barry's near you have closed and they sold coats from anywhere between 8.98 to 14.98 can you really say that this isn't going to effect people?
I'd originally ment to comment on one of the statements made in the article about poor performing stores, so I'll get back on to that topic then be done. As I stated before my store is closing too, but we crunched the numbers. We did our homework and found that we brought in over twice what it takes to keep our store open and operational. And they still closed us. It wasn't due to poor management on a store level, it was due to poor management on the New York level.
Dravvin,
This town could not support both a Wal-mart and this store. I am sorry to hear about the lost jobs. I wish you the best of luck. It is always a difficult and humbling position to be in when you're forced to look for another job regardless of the circumstances. I had heard some talk in St. Louis about a year ago about the posssibility of the Mall being sold to a company that specializes in factory outlet retail. With additional store closings coming soon right after Christmas, this talk may heat up once again.
This is George Bush's fault!
We need to raise taxes so Obama can fix this.