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June 13, 2009

Hacketts closes Canton store

By KIM SMITH DEDAM

LAKE PLACID — Hacketts is closing its anchor department store, located at University Plaza in Canton.

The going-out-of-business sale began last Wednesday, with the Watertown Daily Times reporting that Hacketts plans to shutter the site by July 15.

Contacted Friday at the company’s headquarters in Ogdensburg, former Hacketts CEO Norman V. Garrelts said he is no longer an officer with the company and referred further questions to Thomas W. Scozzafava, CEO of Seaway Valley Capital Corp.

“I’m semi-retired,” Garralts said.

Scozzafava (no relation to the Moriah Town Supervisor with a similar name) could not be reached for an interview.

Several Hacketts department stores remain open, including the store refurbished from the former WiseBuys in Tupper Lake, as well as sites in Potsdam, Gouverneur and Hamilton.

Hacketts signed a lease to open a store in the former Tops Market plaza in Lake Placid. The company said in March that it planned to move ahead with the Lake Placid site.

Garrelts wouldn’t comment further on store operations. The manager of the Tupper Lake Hacketts said she couldn’t talk about the status of that store.

Seaway Valley Capital owned Patrick Hacketts Hardware until December 2008, when it transferred ownership to a public company, The Americas Learning Centers Inc., according to the corporate annual report issued in May.

Scozzafava is a principle of Americas Learning Centers, as well.

Hacketts faced involuntary bankruptcy in April when five creditors, owed a combined $1.6 million, sought to have the company’s assets liquidated.

Records from bankruptcy court reported in BusinessWeek listed creditors as: Columbia Sportswear USA, owed $500,707; Woolrich Inc., owed $260,289; The North Face - VF Outdoor Inc., owed $657,307; Skechers USA Inc., owed $27,000; K-2 Sports, owed $36,200; and Deckers Outdoor Corp., owed $74,477.

Creditors later reached an agreement with Hacketts granting a trustee lien on all assets, and the involuntary bankruptcy action was dismissed May 4.

Hacketts closed stores in Watertown and Pulaski this spring in an attempt to raise funds to pay off a total $5 million debt to Wells Fargo Bank.

Canton economic-development officials expressed distress at the closure of Hacketts there, citing the loss of 26 jobs, plus five other positions at the affiliated Payless Shoe Store.



E-mail Kim Smith Dedam at:

kdedam@pressrepublican.com

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