Herberger's: Farewell to a good neighbor

The news last week that the popular Herberger’s department store in Kalispell Center Mall will be liquidated as its corporate owner goes into bankruptcy court was a gut punch to the Kalispell business community. Just nine months ago Herberger’s held a grand opening for a 40,000-square-foot addition and complete revamp that doubled the size of the store and established it as one of the biggest retailers in downtown Kalispell.

Now, just months after that grand re-opening its corporate owner Bon-Ton has put the local department store on a list of 200 locations nationwide that will be liquidated this spring.

Apparently the impending downfall of the York, Pennsylvania-based company has been on the horizon for months. In February the corporation filed for bankruptcy and about 40 stores were put on the chopping block. None of the closures at that point were in Montana, though. But this week, the entire chain of stores was sold to a liquidator, meaning the end of stores in Kalispell, Great Falls, Havre, Billings, Missoula and Butte.

That’s also going to mean the loss of hundreds of jobs statewide and dozens in the Flathead. We hope that the local economy can find a place for those workers, who bring solid customer-service skills to the table.

It’s no secret that mall retailers across the country are facing the challenges of changing consumer habits as online shopping takes a bigger and bigger bite of the financial pie, but it’s a shame this has happened to a good-neighbor business like Herberger’s, which has been trying to find a way to expand at the mall for three decades.

But although losing Herberger’s will be a big blow to the downtown, it doesn’t have to be a death knell for either the mall or downtown. Kalispell’s core has a lot of good things happening, spurred by the redevelopment plan that will create a trail system on the railroad bed through the city’s heart. Now is the time for our civic leaders to keep their chins up and look at this change as an opportunity for new and different retail growth.