Kmart Corporation this week announced plans to close 326 stores nationwide as part of its proposal to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. According to the company's filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week, the store closings will allow Kmart "to focus their chapter 11 reorganization efforts and their chapter 11 emergence efforts on [its] profitable stores." The obvious implication is that stores remaining open, including the one in Dundas, are performing well.

Minneapolis-based Musicland Group Inc., a subsidiary of Eden Prairie-based Best Buy, announced last week it would close 90 of its more than 800 Sam Goody stores nationwide. But despite that corporate downsizing, the company still plans to open a Sam Goody store in Northfield's Heritage Square Retail Center, according to Jay Jasnoch of the Locust Limited Partnership, which owns the retail center.

Following a series of contentious hearings and disagreements among the Planning Commission and City Council, Locust Limited Partnership received council approval of a permit for Sam Goody to operate in the center, which has entrances off Jefferson Road but visibility from Highway 3. Sam Goody stores specialize in recorded music, videos, video games and electronics.

Even while in a contraction mode, Sam Goody believes business will be good in Northfield. And it seems that the Dundas Kmart is performing to corporate expectations -- all in a time when the national economic trends are spotty at best, and when the state's economy is likely to take a hit while the Legislature tries to erase $4.56 billion of red ink.

All businesses evaluate the economic climate for their specific markets, and Northfield-Dundas has passed the test that several other Minnesota cities and communities nationwide did not.

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