Every item 50 cents before store closes

STRUTHERS — The Goodwill Store in Giannios Plaza on Youngstown-Poland Road is closing within days.

Every item in the store will be on sale for 50 cents from Monday through Wednesday at 5 p.m., when the doors will close permanently. Items sold at the store are mostly clothing and housewares.

Michael McBride, executive director of Youngstown Area Goodwill Industries, said the store may reopen elsewhere. “We don’t know,” he said.

The closing affects only the Struthers store. It stems from an issue over the store’s lease. The Giannios family, which owns Giannios Candy, is Goodwill’s landlord, he said.

McBride said the store has been there for 10 years. Goodwill had an option to renew its lease for another 10 years with a rent increase, but it did not want to do so.

“We wanted to go month-to-month,” he said. “Our intent [now] is to go somewhere else.”

He said Goodwill sent a letter indicating it wanted to negotiate new terms for a lease but did not hear back from its landlord.

With the closing, Youngstown Area Goodwill will have seven stores left in the five-county area that includes Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana, Lawrence and Mercer counties.

The closest stores for Struthers shoppers would be at the Boardman Plaza on U.S. Route 224 and in Liberty at Belmont Avenue and Gypsy Lane, McBride said.

McBride said business was down at the Struthers location, and he suspects that is because of the economy.

Even though shoppers might gravitate toward Goodwill stores in a downturn, the quality of donations the stores rely on goes down.

That’s because people tend to hold on to their clothes and household goods longer, he said.

Nine employees worked at the Struthers store. They all have the option to work at other locations, McBride said.

The landlord couldn’t be reached to comment.