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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAll four RadioShack locations in Indianapolis are slated for closure as part of the latest bankruptcy involving the 96-year-old retailer.
Parent company General Wireless, which filed for Chapter 11 protection March 8 in U.S. Bankruptcy court in Delaware, disclosed its latest plan for closures late last week in court papers.
According to filings, 187 stores will close immediately and another 365 will be shutting down by the first week of April.
Eleven stores in Indiana, including the four in Indianapolis, are on the closure list.
A store locator on the company’s website says all four Indianapolis sites have launched clearance sales before closing, and that Sprint Stores at the locations will not be closing.
Those stores are at East Washington Plaza, 8311 E. Washington St.; Target South Center, 3638 S. East St.; Speedway Supercenter, 5828 Crawfordsville Road; and Marwood Plaza Shopping Center, 3349 Kentucky Ave.
Indianapolis-area stores that avoided the closure list are in Brownsburg, Mooresville, Franklin, Lebanon and Anderson.
Elsewhere in Indiana, stores in Schererville, Seymour, Bloomington, Lafayette, Auburn, Frankfort and Plymouth are set to be closed.
General Wireless was formed by Sprint Corp. and former RadioShack owners with hopes of reviving the fortunes of the venerable consumer-electronics chain. The business was contrived to help the RadioShack name live on following the original chain’s 2015 bankruptcy filing.
The company operates Sprint stores within RadioShack locations, as well as franchising the name to other stores.
When RadioShack Corp. entered Chapter 11 two years ago, it closed about half of its 4,000 stores and sold 1,700 to creditor Standard General LP, which teamed up with Sprint to form General Wireless.
The deal created 1,400 mini-stores plus several hundred franchised units.
The company initially said it would close about 200 stores immediately and evaluate options on the remaining 1,300. But the business increased the closure number to 552 last week, representing 36 percent of the chain’s stores.
The company said the stores being liquidated have the "lowest sales velocity and highest rent."
The future of the remaining stores is still being evaluated, the company said.
At the time of the bankruptcy filing, Sprint said separately that it would convert “several hundred” RadioShack locations into corporate-owned Sprint stores.
RadioShack operated about 45 stores in Indiana before its 2015 bankruptcy, including about 25 in central Indiana.
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