Sears to shutter Great Indoors; Chino Hill's and 7 other locations.

Sears Holdings Corp. is closing its Great Indoors store in Schaumburg next year.
The store is one of seven slated to shut down on or around Feb. 4 due to “poor performance,” a company spokeswoman said. The list includes three stores in Las Vegas; Woodbridge, N.J., and Chino Hills, Calif.

The Hoffman Estate-based retail chain also is shutting down Sears Grand and Sears Essentials stores in American Fork, Utah; Clearwater, Fla., and Menomonee Falls, Wis.

Sears said last month it would close 12 stores on Jan. 31.

The Schaumburg Great Indoors store employed about 113 people. Sears closed its Deerfield Great Indoors location in 2005.

Sears is slated to report third-quarter earnings Dec. 2. In the second quarter, net income dropped 62% to $65 million, or 50 cents a share, from $173 million, or $1.15 a share, in the year-earlier period. Revenue declined to $11.8 billion from $12.3 billion.

Since hedge fund manager and Sears Chairman Edward Lampert merged Sears Roebuck & Co. and Kmart Corp. in 2005, many shareholders betted he would sell the company’s prime real estate. Instead, Mr. Lampert has been restructuring the business by dividing the company into five business types — including real estate.

“Most people would imagine that given the lack of overall performance of the chain, you would probably see him shutting down a larger number of stores and using that capital to invest in some of the emerging businesses,” says Love Goel, who tracks the retail industry as head of retail investment company Growth Ventures Group.

The Great Indoors store concept, the brainchild of then-CEO Arthur Martinez in 1998, offers high-end home décor and remodeling, competing against Home Depot Inc. and Target Corp. It eventually became a money-losing chain.

Sears will be left with about 12 of these stores after the latest round of closings.