Bankrupt flooring company closing 2 stores in region

After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, LL Flooring is closing 94 stores across the country. Among them are two along the west coast of Florida — in Clearwater and Tampa.

The LL Flooring showroom at 2613 Gulf to Bay Boulevard in Clearwater and the store at 8444 West Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa will shutter, according to the company’s website.

LL Flooring, which is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia and used to be known as Lumber Liquidators, announced Aug. 11 it filed for bankruptcy. 

The goal is to provide “time and financial flexibility as we reduce our physical footprint and close certain stores while pursuing a going-concern sale of the rest of our business,” President and CEO of LL Flooring Charles Tyson says in a statement. “After comprehensive efforts to enhance our liquidity position in a challenging macro environment, a determination was made that initiating this Chapter 11 process is the best path forward for the Company.“

More than 300 stores will remain in business. Stores in Brandon, Fort Myers, Lutz, Naples, New Port Richey, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Venice will stay open as the company searches for a buyer.

“LL Flooring remains in active negotiations with multiple bidders and hopes to seek bankruptcy court approval of a sale of its business by mid-September,” the company says on its website.

The decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and close stores comes after steep declines in sales.

Net sales for the first quarter were down 21.7% compared with the same period in 2023, according to the company’s quarterly report. First-quarter business was “difficult,” Tyson says, attributing it to the “impact of weaker home sales, elevated interest rates and inflation, which have led to softness in home improvement, remodel and big ticket discretionary spending.”

Both the number of transactions and the cost per ticket were down in the first quarter, which officials say was consistent with the past year. According to its year-end financial report, LL Flooring saw net sales of $904.7 million in 2023, which was an 18.5% decrease compared with the year before.