Payless to close about 400 stores across the U.S., including 4 in Washington state

The Bellingham Payless Shoe Source store is not on the latest closure list made public by the national retailer as it struggles in bankruptcy.

The company announced on Tuesday it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and that it was immediately closing about 400 stores. According to the company’s closure list, four Washington stores were slated for closure – in Burlington, Poulsbo, Kelso and Marysville. The Burlington store is in the Cascade Mall.

The Bellingham store that is slated to remain open is in Bellis Fair.

So far in 2017 Bellingham has been able to dodge several national retail closures as the industry continues to adjust to changing consumer shopping habits. Macy’s, JC Penney and Kmart are examples of national retailers that have announced closures but chose to keep the Bellingham stores open, for now.

Others have impacted Whatcom County: Radio Shack is closing its Bellingham store, while Family Christian announced in February that it was closing all its stores, including in Bellingham and Lynden.

Payless employs approximately 22,000 people and has 4,000 stores in 30 countries. It is headquartered in Topeka, Kansas. According to a Bloomberg article, Payless had initially considered closing about 500 stores in the weeks before the bankruptcy filing. The article indicated that Payless has a $520 million loan due in 2021.

This story was originally published April 5, 2017 at 10:37 AM with the headline "Payless to close about 400 stores across the U.S., including 4 in Washington state."