Macy's is shuttering seven stores in April with an estimated 500,000 sf, housing 1,500 jobs. Kmart is walking away from about one million sf and 1,455 jobs in March-April at nine metro Atlanta locations.

Macy's, owned by St. Louis-based Federated Department Stores Inc., is the latest major retailer to announce closings in metro Atlanta. The Rich Department Stores in the chain will be renamed Rich's-Macy's.

Macy's will be closing stores Downtown, Gwinnett Place, Cumberland, Southlake, Lenox Square, Perimeter Mall and Town Center at Cobb. The Macy's at Northlake will become a Rich's-Macy's. The Macy's locations at Lenox Square and Perimeter Mall will be reopen later in the year as Bloomingdale's.

Macy's at Town Center at Cobb will convert one floor to a Rich's-Macy's furniture gallery tentatively scheduled to reopen in the fall. The rest of the store will be sold or leased.

The nine metro Atlanta Kmart stores scheduled for closing are in Acworth, GA, 5300 Cherokee St.; Cumming, GA, 520 Lakeland Plaza; Duluth, GA, 3625 Sweetwater Rd.; Gainesville, GA, 889 Dawsonville Hwy.; Newnan, GA, 56 Bullsboro Dr.; Norcross, GA, 4975 Jimmy Carter Blvd.; Sandy Springs, GA, 5925 Roswell Rd.; Suwanee, GA, 3630 Peachtree Pkwy.; and Woodstock, GA, 550 Molly Ln.

In Griffin, GA, about 30 miles south of Downtown Atlanta, Kmart is closing an 86,479-sf store at the 235,318-sf Spalding Village shopping center. Atlanta-based IRT Property Co., which holds the Kmart lease, says the lease accounts for about one cent per share of funds from operations on an annualized basis, including base rents and all related charges of property taxes and common area maintenance.

"Although we are disappointed Kmart has decided to close this location, the combination of additional anchors at Spalding Village, such as Kroger and JC Penney, and the favorable demographics of this location should enable us to re-lease this space relatively quickly," says IRT chairman/CEO Thomas H. McAuley.