Sears to close Great Indoors outlets

Sears Holding Corp. said it would close its remaining Great Indoor outlets, all set up before the Kmart Holding Corp. acquisition. The big-box home decorating stores turned out to be too expensive to operate and initial plans to open 200 of them fell 180 short of that goal, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday. The big stores were launched in 1998, when the company was still Sears, Roebuck and Co. -- before Kmart bought the brand. The Great Indoor stores the retailer plans to close are in Chandler and Scottsdale, Ariz.; Lone Tree, Colo.; Lombard, Ill.; Gaithersburg, Md.; Novi, Mich.; Columbus, Ohio; Farmers Branch and Houston, Texas, the Tribune reported. Sears, which has its headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, has not issued a timeline for when the stores would be closed but informed managers of the decision Thursday.