Alpine Shop to close O’Fallon, Ill., location

Alpine Shop, a locally owned and operated chain of outdoors stores, has announced it is closing its O’Fallon, Ill., location at the end of a four-store stock consolidation sale that starts Wednesday, March 14.

Alpine opened the location in December 2012. The store chain cited declining sales in the market combined with an up-for-renewal lease. The store will close in mid-April.

“Despite our best efforts, the store has just never taken root there like we had hoped. With our lease expiring next month, we made the difficult decision not to renew,”  owner, Russell “Holly” Hollenbeck,“ said this week on the Alpine Shop Blog written by Todd Oswald.

The blog reported that the closure is the first time the company will close a store with no immediate plans to relocate in the same area.

Alpine Shop will liquidate the entire inventory at its 1855 West US Highway 50 store in O’Fallon.

According to the blog report, spring 2018 clothing and outerwear prices will be marked down at least 20 percent off with discounts of 30-50 percent in place for previous seasons’ merchandise. Footwear, camping, climbing, cycling and paddling gear will start at 10% off* for models that just arrived within the past month with reductions of 20-60 perent off previous seasons’ models. Further markdowns will be taken in the snowsport category.

Hollenbeck also announced that the company would be extending those exact same discounts to customers at all four Alpine Shop stores for a limited time beginning next week.

“We have some incredible customers that have been a part of our lives for almost as long as we’ve been in business,” Hollenbeck said. “We felt it was unreasonable to put on a promotion at one store that didn’t offer the same sort of opportunities to the people that have been supporting us for more than four decades.”

All Alpine Shop locations are closed today to prepare for this event. Doors will reopen on Wednesday, March 14 at 9 a.m., for the what the store chain said is the largest promotion in the company’s history.

For nearly 44 years, Alpine Shop has outfitted customers, expanding from a small climbing store in Webster Groves, Mo.