Mattress Firm closes more than 10% of Illinois stores

Even Mattress Firm now recognizes that a street on the North Side of Chicago has enough places to buy a mattress.

The Houston-based retailer, which filed for bankruptcy protection last week, plans to close 209 stores nationwide by the end of the month, including 29 out of 211 in Illinois. Two of the stores on the closure list are in neighboring blocks of North Clybourn Avenue, near Cortland Street, according to bankruptcy court records. The company has two other stores still in operation in Clybourn between Cortland and Wrightwood Avenue.

Mattress Firm plans to close 700 of its 3,400 stores, focusing on those located in areas too close to each other, said CEO Steve Stanger on Friday in a statement posted on the company's website.

The retailer plans to use the savings from closing stores to "improve its product offering, deliver greater value to customers, open new stores in new markets and strategically expand into existing markets where we see better opportunities to serve our customers, "said Stanger. I said.

The list of stores that the company intends to close by the end of the month includes four stores in Chicago and 23 in Algonquin, Arlington Heights, Aurora, Broadview, Calumet City, Chicago Ridge, Evanston, Geneva , Hoffman Estates, Melrose Park, Mount Prospect, New Lenox, Oak Brook, Oswego, Plainfield, Schaumburg, Skokie, South Elgin and Westchester. This will leave even more store fronts vacant for new tenants, just months after the liquidation of Carson's parent company, Bon-Ton Stores and Toys R Us, which has closed dozens of department stores in the area. Illinois – nearly 40 to Bon-Ton and 31 to Toys R Us.

Only Texas had more stores to be closed in the coming days than Illinois. Mattress Firm has announced that it will make decisions regarding additional closures in the coming weeks.

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