Big Lots (With 29 Illinois Stores) Is Closing A Lot More Spots

We're living in an interesting time, which is not always a good thing...especially when it comes to the sheer volume of national chain stores and restaurants that are shuttering locations on a permanent basis (not to mention the number of local businesses that have done the same thing).

There's no need to run down the big list of places that have closed their doors forever, whether they were selling food or anything else, because we see these announcements happening nearly every week.

In this case, what started out as closing some underperforming stores in order to keep a company going has mushroomed into announced closures of what may end up being eight times as many closings as they had originally intended.

With Sales Down Ten Percent And A Loss Of $205 Million Because Of Changing Spending Habits By Their Customer Base, Big Lots Had To Do Something To Survive

That something turned out to be closing some of their stores across the country.

According to an SEC filing from last month, Big Lots, which was founded in Columbus, Ohio 50 years ago, said that they expected to be closing somewhere between 35 and 40 stores across the nation this year.

They also said at the time that they planned to open 3 new ones, but with their latest announcement, those 3 stores might have been put on indefinite hold. A follow-up announcement has changed things, especially the number of stores they plan to close.

In a later filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Big Lots shared some of the new terms for loans that have lowered Big Lots' credit limit and raised the interest rates that Big Lots will pay on that loan. Those terms mean more closures than Big Lots had planned.

The Original Plan Was To Close 35-40 Stores This Year, With An Overall Goal Of Closing About 150 Spots

That number has been revised upward to 315 stores being targeted for permanent closure from coast-to-coast.

Big Lots has not released a full list of which stores they plan to permanently close, but when I combed through the Big Lots website to see which stores are closing, I saw that there are several in Illinois...and there may be more.

Here's the list of the current locations of Big Lots stores in Illinois. The stores with a line drawn through them are the Illinois stores currently closed or being scheduled for closing:

• Alton
• Bourbonnais
• Burbank
• Calumet City
• Centralia
• Champaign
• Country Club Hills
• Crest Hill
• Danville
• Decatur
• East Peoria
• Elgin
• Fairview Heights
• Franklin Park
• Galesburg
• Lockport
• Machesney Park
• Mattoon
• Moline
• Mount Vernon
• Niles
• Oakbrook Terrace
• Peoria
• Peru
• Quincy
• Round Lake Beach
• Springfield (2 locations)
• Wood Dale