A beloved Macy’s store, a retail icon for more than 50 years, is set to close its doors, leaving customers to say goodbye to a 51-year-old landmark.
The sprawling Macy’s in Massapequa, New York, nestled within Sunrise Mall, is set to close permanently on April 11, ending an era that began in 1973.
The three-story, 20,000-square-foot department store, like many other brick-and-mortar stores, has succumbed to the nationwide wave of closures, as an increasing number of customers prefer to shop for clothes and other daily necessities online.
Liquidation sales at the megastore began in February, with discounts of up to 60%. This is just one of 66 Macy’s stores across 23 states that are expected to close by the end of year.
According to the Mirror US, the Massapequa location is the first of three Macy’s stores on Long Island to close, with smaller branches in New Hyde Park and Huntington Station also set to close before the end of the year.
According to Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) filings obtained by the Daily Mail, the company plans to lay off 77 employees as part of these closures. However, for long-time employees, the store’s impending closure came as no surprise.
Sunrise Mall has been dealing with a mass exodus of tenants and declining customer traffic. The mall, which previously housed major retailers such as HomeGoods and Raymour and Flanigan, now only has one store: Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Nefta Golding, a 15-year employee at Massapequa Macy’s, spoke with Newsweek. She was surprised by the timing of the store’s closure rather than by the news itself.
“I thought we’d have the rest of the year,” she admitted. However, her prediction was incorrect.
Now, the iconic Macy’s is set to join the estimated 15,000 retail stores that will close nationwide in 2025, more than doubling the approximately 7,000 closures in 2024.
