Steve & Barry’s to close Candlers Station store

By Bryan Gentry
Lynchburg News & Advance
Published: September 3, 2008

The Steve & Barry’s store at Candler’s Station is set to close.

“Store Closing” signs were hung in the store’s windows over Labor Day weekend.

“Everything must go” for $8.98 or less, the signs say. That’s the price tag the company put on all its merchandise last year during a Christmas-season sale.

It is the second store to close at the Candler’s Station shopping center this year.

The discount clothing store Goody’s announced in June that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and that the Lynchburg store would close. The 40,000-square-foot store closed in early August.

Steve & Barry’s LLC announced its own bankruptcy filing July 9. It announced no store closings at that time, however.

The Associated Press reported then that the company had strong sales increases in the first five months of 2008, but that it may have been operating on thin margins, making most of its income from up-front payments by mall owners who wanted to lure the retailer.

On Aug. 22, the company announced that BHY S&B Holdings LLC, a newly-formed affiliate of Bay Harbour Management and York Capitol Management, would buy most of Steve & Barry’s LLC’s assets.

The exact number of Steve & Barry’s stores expected to close has not officially been announced.

The company sent out a news release Tuesday afternoon detail-ing that information, but then said the chain-wide list of closures was not finalized and the news release was inaccurate.

Rachel Brenner, Steve & Barry’s senior manager of public relations, confirmed that the Lynchburg store is closing.

Candler’s Station is still home to the popular Cinemark 10 discount movie theater, several restaurants, clothing retailers Rugged Wearhouse and T.J. Maxx and several other stores.

But it is also home to nearly 170,000 square feet of vacant retail space, including the Goody’s space and a former Circuit City store, according to the Web site for Developer’s Diversified Realty advertising the property.

The Steve & Barry’s at Candler’s Station would add 24,287 square feet to that.