East Vancouver J.C. Penney store on list of closures

The J.C. Penney store in east Vancouver’s Columbia Tech Center is permanently closing Oct. 26.

The store, at 19005 S.E. Mill Plain Blvd., is undergoing a liquidation process, which will involve going-out-of-business sales until late October, according to an employee at the location who did not give her name.

Penney said on its website that all sales will be final as of Friday.

The Vancouver Mall store is set to remain open.

The Plano, Texas, company  is closing 151 stores nationwide in an effort to bring the company back to profitability. It declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May.

According to USA Today, the company is hoping to shed debt and split into two entities: an operating business and a real estate investment trust. Although the retailer hopes to stay in business, liquidation of the entire chain remains a possibility.

The latest list of store closures includes Omak and Sunnyside in Washington. In Oregon, the company is closing stores in Bend, McMinnville, Roseburg and Salem Center mall.

The future of the east Vancouver J.C. Penney building is unknown, but The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Amazon was interested in converting some shuttered J.C. Penney and Sears buildings into fulfillment centers around the country. Penney’s opened the Columbia Tech Center store in 2008.

Retail stores across the country have suffered from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Clark County, retailers were forced to close for about two months and then opened at a limited capacity.