Edhat Staff
Orchard Supply Hardware in the Fairview Shopping Center in Goleta (courtesy photo)
By edhat staff
Lowe’s, the massive home-improvement store chain, announced Wednesday morning that all Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) stores will close by the end of the fiscal year.
OSH has a total of 99 locations in California, Oregon, and Florida. Locally, OSH has made a home in the Fairview Shopping Center in Goleta, as well as Santa Maria, Pismo Beach, and Thousand Oaks. Closing the OSH location in Goleta will create a large vacant space for the small shopping center.
Lowe’s purchased the majority of OSH stores out of bankruptcy from the former owner, Sears Holdings Corp, five years ago for $205 million. Lowe’s recent CEO hire Marvin Ellison, the former CEO of JcPenney, stated in a press release they will be shutting down all Orchard Supply Hardware stores and plan to slash inventory at Lowes stores.
Sales at Lowe’s stores open at least one year rose 5.3% in the second quarter but do not rival their competitor, Home Depot, whose sales were up more than 8%.
Lowe’s also announced they hired David Denton, the current chief financial officer of CVS, to be their new CFO. Denton will join Lowe’s after CVS completes its acquisition of insurer Aetna. Last month Ellison announced a corporate management restructuring that would eliminate the chief operating officer and chief customer officer position, as well as other senior leadership staff.
The statement also announced their plans to shake up product offerings in their stores. Ellison stated they will “aggressively rationalize store inventory” and cut back on lower-performing items.
Orchard Supply Hardware has 4,300 employees. Ellison stated the employees will be given “priority status” if they apply for other jobs at Lowe’s and will also receive job placement assistance and severance.
It’s unclear how many employees will lose their job in the local area, but the closest Lowe’s locations are in Santa Maria, Ventura, and Oxnard.
I think you need to read the article. This will not be operated as a Lowes. This is part of a cut back by Lowes.
So will OSH in Goleta be replaced by a Lowes? This sucks. OSH was the best. Lowes is just a larger version of Home Depot from what I experienced at the Ventura location. No help, just tons of stuff and no one knowing where anything is.
Maybe the sporting goods store that didn’t go into Camino Real Marketplace can go into the OSH space.
I wonder what over-priced high-end grocery store will take over that spot?
I am sure Channel City Lumber can pick up the slack. Home Depot is NOT the only option.
Does anyone know if the local store was profitable? If it was, I wonder if it could be taken over by someone? If not, then no one can save it. They carried a better plumbing and irrigation supply selection than the other stores in the area for the things I needed.
Sad to see OSH close. It’s a nice hard ware store and actually has the little bits of hardware you can’t find anywhere else like the exact size screws you need. I was at Home Depot this weekend. Almost all of the checkouts are now self-checkouts. So they are cutting jobs to compete too. Some to this pressure to automate is the push for higher minimum wages. Higher minimum wages drives up wages across the board and improves the financial return on investment in automated check-out stations. An unintended consequence and collateral damage driven by well meaning legislation.