Casual Corner stores to close

Casual Corner will close its downtown Spokane and Spokane Valley Mall stores by the end of January as part of a company-wide shutdown, a store manager said Wednesday.

Casual Corner has occupied 5,000 square feet on the main level of River Park Square for four years. The company opened its Casual Corner Annex and Petite Annex in Spokane Valley Mall last year after closing its Post Falls outlet.

In August, Retail Brand Alliance Inc. sold Casual Corner Group to Boston-based Gordon Brothers Group LLC, a liquidation and store closure specialist, according to numerous published news reports. Casual Corner has over 550 stores nationwide.

“The entire company is closing,” said Kari-Lise Alexander, store manager at Spokane Valley Mall. She said she has not been notified of her store’s closing date yet, but was told she’d have 10 days notice. She said stores nationwide would be closing by Jan. 31.

River Park Square Manager Bob Smith said the store in the downtown mall should be open through the end of January, as far as he knows. He said the mall already has a “couple of options” it is pursuing to fill the space as soon as Casual Corner leaves.

“You just have to be ready and flexible,” Smith said. “People come and people go. It’s a given in retail.”

Smith said the store always performed well, was well-managed and had solid inventory levels. He said the closure will leave a bit of a gap in the petite merchandise area.

Alexander said the downtown store and Valley stores have about 14 employees combined.