The North Olympic Peninsula’s three RadioShacks have been spared — for now — the fate of 1,784 company-owned stores that will close as a result of the corporation’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last week.
Managers of the company-owned electronics store in Port Angeles and privately owned franchises in Sequim and Port Townsend said in interviews Tuesday that they expect to remain open for the foreseeable future.
RadioShack’s dealer franchise stores, which number more than 1,000 in 25 countries, were not included among the stores targeted for closure that the company made public last week in announcing a debt-restructuring plan.
Damon Scott, manager of the company-owned Port Angeles RadioShack at 1940 E. First St., Suite 156, Port Angeles Plaza, and an employee there for almost 21 years, said he is retiring from RadioShack at age 44 in the next couple of days anyway.
Assistant Manager Genna Ferrie will take over temporarily until a corporate regional manager takes charge, Scott said.
He said he discussed his store’s future during a half-hour corporate conference call Friday morning.
Scott would not recount the conversation Tuesday.
The company has about 4,000 stores, according to RadioShack’s statement on the bankruptcy proceedings.
Store within store
General Wireless, which was formed to acquire between 1,500 and 2,400 of the company-owned stores, has agreed with Sprint to establish a “store within a store” presence in up to 1,750 of the acquired stores, according to the company.
Those locations would be rebranded as Sprint on storefronts and marketing materials, and continue to sell some RadioShack products, www.cnbc.com reported.
A Sprint spokesman said it’s yet to be determined whether RadioShack’s nameplate would live on in the co-branded stores.
A RadioShack spokeswoman who would not give her name would not comment Tuesday on the co-branding report.
“It’s a fluid situation,” she told the Peninsula Daily News.
“We don’t have an answer to that right now.”
She said she could not comment on the fate of stores that were not on the closure list.
Overall RadioShack sales declined 16 percent in the third quarter of 2014 compared with 2013.
Port Angeles store
Scott said he knew going into the Friday conference call that he would not be soon turning off the lights for good in the immediate future.
But the store’s future remains uncertain, he said.
“In bank proceedings, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” Scott said.
“It’s all within the next few weeks on what happens, totally.”
But he was confident the store was not in danger of shutting down.
The isolation of Port Angeles works in favor of keeping the store open because there are not many others like it in the area, Scott said.
His message to his two full-time and three part-time employees:
“Just hang in there until we hear different.”
Sequim, Port Townsend
The husband-wife team of Dave and Barbara Lyle owns franchise RadioShacks in Sequim at 680 W. Washington St., No. B-106, Washington Plaza, and in Port Townsend at 2207 E. Sims Way.
“The main supply chain will not change,” Dave Lyle said.
He has two full-time and four part-time employees at the Sequim store he runs.
“We aren’t going to close,” he said.
“We have no financial liability for their problems.”
Barbara Lyle, who runs the Port Townsend store, has four part-time employees.
“I intend to stay open,” she said.
“I feel that we’re direly needed here in Port Townsend.
“We get people in here every day that reiterate that.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
