Gordmans department store in Fairview Heights to close this spring

The Gordmans department store in Fairview Heights is closing.

The news was first reported by the St. Louis Business Journal.

“Five of six area Gordmans stores will close ‘in the near future,’ the owner of the chain said Thursday,” the publication stated.

The other four stores reportedly are in Arnold, Fenton, O’Fallon and St. Charles, Missouri. The store in Crystal City, Missouri, will remain open.

A Gordmans employee who answered the phone at the Fairview Heights location on Friday verified that the store is closing at the end of May and that she would lose her job. She declined to give her name.

Officials at Gordmans headquarters in Houston, Texas, did not return calls for comment Friday.

The local Gordmans store is in Fairview Heights Plaza, north of Interstate 64 and west of Illinois 159, near St. Clair Cinema. It sells clothing and home goods.

Fairview Heights city officials had been concerned about the strip mall, partly because of a large space that stood vacant for four years after Sports Authority moved out. But that space was filled last year by an Urban Air Adventure Park franchise.

Gordmans’ history dates back to 1915, when Sam Richman opened a small clothing store in Omaha, Nebraska. A second store opened in 1948, and the name was changed to Richman Gordman to include Dan Gordman, Richman’s son-in-law.

The company began to expand into other states and eventually the name was shortened. Stage Stores bought 48 Gordmans stores in 2017, when Gordmans filed for bankruptcy.

The Business Journal referred to a Retail Dive report Wednesday that Stage had laid off corporate staffers and planned to close 60 Gordmans stores, as well as 10 department stores slated to become Gordmans locations, in addition to 40 stores that Stage had targeted for closure last fall.

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Stage was preparing for a financial restructuring that could include a bankruptcy filing.

This story was originally published February 28, 2020 at 5:01 PM.