The store's departure was
prompted by slow sales, the
retail chain says

By Rob Perez
Star-Bulletin

The planned closing of the JC Penney store at Windward Mall will enable the mall to move ahead with plans to open a multiplex theater next year.

Sandi Oguma, the mall's marketing director, said half of the 87,585 square feet of space that J.C. Penney Co. is vacating will be converted to a theater complex with a minimum of 10 screens.

Several companies have expressed an interest in the project, and the mall expects to solicit proposals and select an operator in 45 to 60 days, with a targeted opening of fall 1999, Oguma said.

Confirming rumors that have circulated for weeks, Plano, Texas-based J.C. Penney announced yesterday that the Windward store, which opened 15 years ago, would close by Aug. 1 because of disappointing sales.

J.C. Penney will try to place as many of the 81 affected employees in jobs at the retailer's other Oahu stores at Ala Moana Center and Pearl Ridge Shopping Center, said Tim Penny, district manager. But Penny acknowledged layoffs could occur.

The national retailer had announced in January that it would close 75 poorly performing stores, but it didn't identify which ones.

Oguma said the mall got word yesterday that the Kaneohe store would be among those. "While we regret the loss of an anchor store, Kaneohe is in need of theaters, and this is an opportunity for Windward Mall to satisfy that need," she said.

The mall has long wanted to add a multiplex theater to its retail mix, and for nearly the past year it has started developing alternative plans for developing at least a 10-screen complex within the shopping center's 530,000 square feet.

One of those plans earmarked a theater in part of the JC Penney space, Oguma said, even though the mall had no warning of the store's closing.

Kaneohe has been without a movie theater since a two-screen complex closed at the Windward City Shopping Center roughly 10 years ago.

Consolidated Amusement Co. repeatedly has said it wants to open a theater at Windward Mall, but Oguma said the mall will consider proposals from all companies.

Officials from Consolidated and Wallace Theatres, the state's two biggest theater operators, didn't return phone calls seeking comment. Both are growing. Signature Theatres, which opened a 12-screen complex in Pearl City last year, also is looking to expand.