Ames store in Newport set to close

NEWPORT – Ames Department Stores Inc. on Thursday announced the closing of 47 stores, including its 16-year-old store on Main Street in Newport.

The closing leaves the 42-year-old Connecticut-based chain with 22 stores in Maine, including stores in Bangor, Belfast, Ellsworth and Dover-Foxcroft.

The Newport store, which employs 43 people – including 35 full-time employees – will begin liquidating inventory immediately and is expected to close by the end of October, according to a statement from the company.

“The closures are based on the individual performances of each store,” Ames spokeswoman Amy Romano said Thursday, adding that the stores were selected during an ongoing review of operations. “It’s a difficult thing. It’s difficult for the stores, especially one like this that’s been around for a long time.”

In total, the scheduled store closings will affect 2,000 employees in 10 markets. The company will seek to find opportunities for these employees in other markets wherever possible, according to a statement from the company’s headquarters in Rocky Hill, Conn.

Company officials do not expect much improvement in the economy during the short term and have decided to concentrate their efforts on the company’s “viable core business” of about 400 stores, according to a company news release.

The 43,500-square-foot Newport Ames opened Valentine’s Day 1985.

Some in town said they foresaw the store’s demise with the 1994 opening of the Arkansas-based retail giant Wal-Mart about a half-mile away, just across the town line in Palmyra. Wal-Mart, an Ames competitor, is in the process of expanding its Palmyra site to include an 80,000-square-foot grocery store.

Last year, Ames Department Stores Inc. grew rapidly, increasing the number of stores by 50 percent to 452 in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to the Newport location, Ames will close 15 stores in Ohio, 12 in Pennsylvania, six in Indiana, four in Virginia, three in Illinois, three in New York and one store each in Maryland, North Carolina and West Virginia.