CAPE OFFICE 1 SUPERSTORE, OTHERS CLOSING

Office 1 Superstore Number 118 is closing.

Number 118 in the retail chain of office products, furniture, computers and electronics is situated at 214 S. Silver Springs Road in Cape Girardeau. It is one of 35 stores that will close as part of a court-ordered liquidation.

Going-out-of-business sales will start at all 35 stores today.

Five of the closures are in Missouri: at Cape Girardeau, St. Joseph, Jefferson City, Joplin and Columbia.

Four stores are in Arkansas, including stores at Jonesboro, Hot Springs, Rogers and Fayetteville.

The liquidation sales will continue in all stores until all merchandise is sold, said Cory Ripoff of Gordon Brothers Partners, a Boston-based retail advisory firm that has been appointed by U.S. Bankruptcy Court to manage the sales.

The total value of merchandise to be sold is $17 million.

During the liquidation sales, all merchandise will be discounted, including the complete line of office supplies, from desk accessories to electronics goods, and furniture to computer hardware and software.

The 12,000-square-foot Cape Girardeau store, which offered more than 7,000 products, opened in September 1994.

Chicago-based Office 1 Superstores was created in 1991, and had stores sprinkled throughout an 11-state area.

One store was at Jackson, Tenn., and one at Bowling Green, Ky. Five were in Illinois, four each in Iowa and Wisconsin, three each in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, and two in Minnesota.

Cape Girardeau won't be without a major office-supply store: Staples Inc., a 10-year-old office superstore, held its grand opening last weekend at 294 Siemers Drive in Cape West Business Park.

Staples, which has 26,000 square feet of space here, provides up to 7,000 brand-name office products along with furniture, computers and business machines.

The Cape Girardeau store is the company's first in Missouri.

Staples operates 557 office superstores throughout North America and a number in foreign markets.

Staples recently announced that it is buying Office Depot for $3.35 billion, combining the nation's two largest office-supply giants to create a chain of nearly 1,100 stores in the United States and Canada.

The new company, Staples/Office Depot, will cut overhead by combining some operations, including mail-order business, the company said. But the company also said the overall number of employees will increase because the new company hopes to open 100 more stores within two years.