Danville is losing one of its office supply stores. OfficeMax has informed employees that its store along North Vermilion Street will be closing November 18th.
Mayor Scott Eisenhauer says he is disappointed that Danville is losing one of its large retail businesses, especially since it is his understanding that OfficeMax was doing well in Danville. But the Mayor says the closing is a symptom of two different things. ‘’It’s a symptom first of all of what the technological age has done to retail and brick and mortar stores. You know every day you hear more and more stores across this country who are closing their brick and mortar operations because of online sales and the inability to compete with those. So my fear,’’ added Mayor Eisenhauer, ‘’is this is yet another one of those casualties. The other issue is, unfortunately, OfficeMax didn’t own their building. And so, here we are once again relying on a property owner from outside the area to continue to work with the corporate office of a business and that may not have happened here.’’
And how has the search for other new retail businesses for Danville been going? ‘’Well we’re always doing that and quite frankly lately we’ve had some pretty decent nibbles…some companies that are – in fact – looking at some space that we have in the community. It’s a matter of being able to negotiate with those property owners in order to acquire a piece of property at a reasonable price recognizing that they’re going to have to make an investment on it.’’
Mayor Eisenhauer says those efforts will continue, as he noted the city has had some success in the past three or four years. And he expects there will be some success in the future as well when it comes to landing new retail businesses.
OfficeMax is also closing some of its other stores in Illinois. A going-out-of-business sale has already started at its Danville store.
