In the wake of J.C. Penney Co.’s decision to close Astoria’s 101-year-old store, the City Council plans to send the company’s CEO a letter today asking him to reconsider.
The chain department store recently announced it would soon shutter two distribution facilities and 138 stores, including the historic location in downtown Astoria, to help the company’s bottom line.
Astoria’s residents are already mourning the loss. On Monday, the City Council authorized Councilor Cindy Price to draft the letter to CEO Marvin Ellison, which the entire council later signed.
The letter does not offer a sentimental plea to save the store on Commercial Street, but a pragmatic rundown of reasons that might rekindle the company’s financial interest in the area.
The city’s economy is “diverse and robust, with a low (4.2 percent) unemployment rate, all of which fully supports continuing strong sales at the downtown Astoria J.C. Penney store.”
Astoria, the councilors remind Ellison, is a “port of entry and regional trading center.”
On top of national retailers already investing in the region and “achieving healthy sales,” WalMart is scheduled to open a Warrenton store in 2018.
“Between 2007 and 2016 the retail component of our economy was the third fastest growth sector, after leisure & hospitality and education & health services, with a 7 percent growth in employment,” the letter reads. “This speaks to our region’s buying power, year-round sales, and the strength of the summer and cruise months when the population of the region swells with visitors and tourists.”
Astoria’s J.C. Penney is seven blocks from Columbia Memorial Hospital, the county’s second-largest employer, and soon will be four blocks away from the new Mo’s Restaurant, the letter points out.
In addition, “Astoria is one of only 13 cities across the United States that has received designation as an official Coast Guard City, home to more than 2,000 members of the Coast Guard, and attracting both air and afloat crews for training at the Advanced Helicopter Rescue School and the National Motor Lifeboat School.”
The letter highlights Oregon’s lack of a sales tax, which, the letter says, draws shoppers from Washington state.
“License plates in downtown Astoria and throughout the county reflect that population and, we are certain, so would the J.C. Penney customer profile in Astoria. Very many of these customers do not shop online, so this is lost revenue forever if the downtown store is closed.”
The letter concludes with a simple request “that our downtown Astoria J.C. Penney store remain open for many more years, and many more shoppers.”