Sports Authority’s two-month liquidation process ends today; comes on heels of retailer’s bankruptcy filing

WASILLA — For anyone waiting for that rock-bottom markdown on a fleece jacket or a pair of soccer cleats, Sunday is the day at the Wasilla Sports Authority location.

The store will be closed for good at the end of business Sunday, concluding a roughly two-month liquidation process begun in May after the national retailer pulled the plug on some 300 outlets that had survived an initial round of bankruptcy closures.

The future for a new tenant for the space also remains unclear, as the hope that another sporting goods retailer would take on the lease hasn’t materialized, according to a local manager.

Once the nation’s largest sporting goods retailer, Colorado-based Sports Authority filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early March with the stated hopes of closing some 140 under-performing stores and reorganizing its remaining business with the 300 that remained. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the store had some 14,500 employees nationwide.

In Alaska, the retailer owns one store each in Wasilla and Fairbanks and two in Anchorage. The Fairbanks store will close Sunday as well, while the Anchorage stores have a couple of more weeks.

Wasilla manager Chris Wright said Friday the store will have normal business hours — 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. — Sunday, but might close early if the remaining merchandise is sold.

“We have to be out of the building with all the cleaning, vacuuming and everything else done by Monday,” he said.

Wright said once the liquidation was announced, the hope among managers and employees was that another retailer like Dick’s Sporting Goods would step in. That’s not going to happen in Alaska, Wright said.

“They have not picked up any leases in Alaska,” Wright said of Dick’s. “They have picked up some (leases) in California, Oregon and Washington, but not up here.”

Published reports earlier this month said Dick’s had purchased Sports Authority’s intellectual property assets for $15 million, which included some 144 million customer files and 25 million email addresses.

On Friday, a midday crowd of around 30 shoppers milled around what merchandise remains, much of it now moved to the front of the store. Wright said what doesn’t sell Sunday will be taken to the Old Seward Highway location in Anchorage.

At the time of the liquidation announcement in May, some 30 employees staffed the business. Some quit entirely, while others moved on to other retail jobs, Wright said, adding that the staff has dwindled to 12 in recent weeks. Of that total, half have found employment elsewhere ahead of the closure.

Wright said he was still in the employment hunt.

“I have some things I am pursuing, but nothing yet,” he said. “I’m hopeful.”

The Wasilla Sports Authority store debuted in 2009, shortly after Target’s fall of 2008 grand opening in the redeveloped space that was once the Cottonwood Creek Mall.

Contact reporter Steven Merritt at 352-2269 or steven.merritt@frontiersman.com