Stride Rite, the children’s shoe store that helped sell the iconic Keds in the 1980s, is closing its only north Broward location — at Coral Square mall in Coral Springs – in August.
“Our Coral Square lease is expiring and we have opted not to renew,” according to an email from a Stride Rite spokeswoman, quoting a company executive.
The only other stand-alone Stride Rite in Broward is at the Pembroke Lakes Mall in Pembroke Pines; to the north is an outlet store in West Palm Beach, a Stride Rite spokeswoman said.
Stride Rite has been owned by Wolverine Worldwide since 2012, which began shutting down stores in 2014 to improve profits.
After closing 104 stores in 2015, Wolverine Worldwide said it plans to shutter 100 throughout this year in response to a difficult global retail and consumer environment, the Grand Rapids Press in Michigan reported in February. The vast majority of the closures in 2014 and 2015 were Stride Rite stores, shrinking the chain to about 220 stores.
The Stride Rite Corp., of Lexington, Mass., began in 1919 out of a converted stable in Boston as the Green Shoe Manufacturing Co. By 1959 it was one of the country’s largest manufacturers and officially changed its name to Stride Rite in 1972.
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