Virgin Megastores Closing All U.S. Locations

Virgin Megastores will close all of its U.S. locations this summer. The music chain will remain in business in other parts of the world as well as online.

Virgin Megastores Closing

There are currently six Virgin Megastores locations still open across America, including the store in New York City’s Times Square. That store, according to published reports, was set to make $56 million last year — but when the nationwide economic trouble began, the trends suddenly dropped and the store did not meet its projection. Overall, the stores are said to ring in $170 million a year, compared to $230 million a year back in 2002 (at which point Virgin had 23 U.S. locations).

The 52,000-square-foot Times Square Virgin store will close first, with a final day scheduled for April. The other five stores will shut down in June. About a thousand jobs will be lost in all.

Virgin Megastores first opened in 1992 with a store on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard. The U.S. branch of the company was bought by Related and Vornado Realty Trust in 2007.

About 150 Virgin Megastores will remain open in parts of Asia, the Middle East, and France. Those locations, unlike the closing U.S. ones, are all still owned by the Virgin Group.