Thirteen months after opening its doors, Albertsons Inc. is exiting the highly competitive Cape Girardeau grocery market and is trying to sell its $3 million building as soon as possible, the company announced Thursday.

Albertsons, the country's second-largest grocery chain behind Kroger Co., will close the doors of its Cape Girardeau store Thursday at 6 p.m., leaving roughly 80 employees out of work. The 57,560-square-foot building is located at the corner of Kingshighway and Independence.

"The store never received the level of acceptance from the community to justify the expense," said Walt Rubel, director of government relations and community affairs for Albertsons.

Asked to elaborate, he said: "Let's put it like this, the store just wasn't profitable."

Nationwide closings

In July, the Idaho-based chain announced it would close 165 underperforming drug and grocery stores in 25 states in an effort to reduce overhead and consolidate to restore profitability.

Rubel said Albertsons decided to pull out of the mid-south market and four other stores will be closed soon: two in Memphis, Tenn., as well as stores in Collierville, Tenn., and Hot Springs, Ark. They also recently announced that they would close the store in Springfield, Mo.

Employees of the Cape Girardeau store were notified Thursday morning and a sign was placed on the doors announcing the permanent closing. The Albertsons gas station will also close.

Employees will continue to get paid and receive full benefits for a "substantial period of time," Rubel said, only saying that it would be more than a month. Some employees could ask to be transferred to other Albertsons stores, but Rubel said most employees don't typically do that.

For some workers, their last day will be Thursday, Rubel said. Others will work for a week or two as the store is emptied and cleaned. He said any non-perishables that are not sold will be boxed up and sent to other stores.

While local Albertsons employees and management declined comment Thursday, customers were saddened.

"I hate that it's happening," said Ken Johnson, a Cape Girardeau insurance agent who had stopped in to buy a newspaper. "I hate it for them, I hate it for the town, but I especially hate it for the employees."

But he said he also shops at Schnucks, located across Kingshighway, and he said there's a noticeable difference.

"You can't hardly walk up and down the aisle, it's so busy over there," he said. "You don't see near as many people here."

Cape Girardeau resident Catherine Hervey said she was shocked by the news.

"I come here every day," she said. "All those people who work here and now they don't have work. It's so sad."

That the store -- which cost roughly $3 million to build -- only opened recently was not a factor, said company spokeswoman Jeannette Duwe.

"It was a difficult decision," she said. "When we open a store, we expect it to be successful. In this case, it did not serve the business to keep one store open just because it was new. Having said that, we do hate to leave a market that we were so new to."

She said that there are so many grocery stores in the area -- most notably grocery powerhouses Schnucks and Wal-Mart -- was a part of the reason they closed.

"Cape Girardeau is a very competitive market," Duwe said. "Certainly all the competition did weigh into the decision."

The closing creates another empty grocery store building in Cape Girardeau, less than a week after it was reported that the First Assembly of God church was buying the former Mr. K's Food Center on Silver Springs Road.

Albertsons is aggressively working to sell the building and 7.38 acres of land, Rubel said. He said there have been interested parties, but nothing has panned out yet.

Tom Kelsey is the president of Lorimont Place Ltd., and brokered the deal when Albertsons bought the property in 1999.

"That store changed the whole complexion of that part of town," Kelsey said. "It got rid of those old junky buildings and made it look nice. There's no doubt from a broker's perspective, it will be a prime location for another retailer. That's definitely its highest and best use."

Cape Girardeau Chamber of Commerce president John Mehner said he hated to hear that the store was closing.

Mehner said he believed that the chain was expanding too quickly. But he also added he didn't believe they gave the Cape Girardeau store significant time to build a customer base.

"But I understand it's a fierce market," he said. "It's no secret Cape Girardeau has some strong players in the grocery business."

smoyers@semissourian.com

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