Family Video closing remaining stores, including Cape location

After closing half its 500 stores in 2020, Family Video announced this week it is shutting down the rest of its video rental stores, including its location in Cape Girardeau.

The Cape Girardeau store, 1330 Broadway, will close in about four to six weeks, “depending on how quickly we liquidate inventory,” according to Brent Conley, regional vice president of Highland Ventures Ltd., Family Video’s parent company in Glenview, Illinois.

The inventory includes DVD and Blu-ray movies, video games and CBD products, as well as store fixtures.

Founded 42 years ago in Springfield, Illinois, Family Video grew from a single outlet in Springfield to become one of the nation’s largest movie rental chains. It successfully transitioned from Beta and VHS cassettes to DVD and Blu-ray formats and continued to thrive following the liquidation and bankruptcy of Hollywood Video in 2010 and closure of all but one Blockbuster Video store in the years since.

Family Video opened its Cape Girardeau store in 2008 on a site once occupied by a Hardee’s fast food restaurant. By 2018, the video chain had more stores than Sears or Barnes and Noble, mostly in the Midwest, and had approximately 10,000 employees.

However, changes in consumer preferences and the proliferation of online streaming services led to the company’s decision to shutter stores beginning in 2020. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic accelerated the company’s closure timeline.

“The impact of COVID-19, not only in foot traffic but also in the lack of movie releases, pushed us to the end of an era,” Kevin Hoogland, Highland Ventures CEO, said in a Facebook post Tuesday.

“We’ve been fighting the stigma of online entertainment for years,” Conley said, explaining that more and more, movie studios are bypassing the DVD market and instead are providing their products to streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+.

“Unfortunately, the studios have not provided any physical media to speak of,” he said.

“While we are disappointed in the closing of Family Video, we will remain tied to our communities through our Legacy Commercial Property division, owning and managing buildings in the community,” Hoogland said.

That division of the company owns the Family Video building, which also houses Marco’s Pizza. Neither the pizzeria nor China Wok, another tenant of the building, will be affected by the video store’s closure, Conley said.

As for the space now occupied by Family Video, he said the company will be “aggressively leasing that space out.” The building itself is also available for lease or purchase, according to a news release from Highland Ventures.

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