Sam’s Outdoor Outfitters to close Hadley store in June

HADLEY — A store specializing in sporting goods, clothing and camping equipment that opened at 227 Russell St. in 2010 will be closing in June.

Sam’s Outdoor Outfitters recently made the decision to shutter the 10,600-square-foot store, apprising both town officials and the state attorney general’s office of the store closing sale inventory in advance.

“The main reason that we’re closing the Hadley store is that we’ve had a few tough years financially and I don’t see things getting better any time soon,” owner Brad Borofsky wrote in an email from the company’s Brattleboro, Vermont headquarters. “I also don’t have a fourth generation coming in behind me to take over.  While we’ve had our ups and downs for the entire almost 94 years we’ve been here, I just don’t see a path for things to improve quickly enough for me to stick it out.”

Borofsky also noted that he’s had both the Hadley and North Swanzey, New Hampshire stores up for sale for a few years in hopes of finding someone with multiple stores with a better chance at doing well. 

An advertisement in the Gazette this week states that everything in the store will be 20% to 50% off through June 20, with gift cards to be honored.

Borofsky’s family founded Sam’s as an Army-Navy Surplus Store in Brattleboro in 1932. Both the Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, Vermont locations have since closed.

The Hadley Sam’s opened in what had been the Amherst Drop Zome. The site was previously the Hadley Antiques Mall and for a brief time in the early 2000s a portion of the building was used as D.W.’s Blue Rail Restaurant and Sports Bar.

The Hadley store has about 20 employees, who Borofsky praises as the backbone of the operation. Still, prices on the merchandise was going to go up by about 8% this year, and with likely fuel surcharges, costs would increase even more. This, he said, puts the New Hampshire location at risk, as well.

Borofsky thanks the customers who have made the store what it is.    

The competition for stores with similar products along the Route 9 corridor include Dick’s Sporting Goods at the Hampshire Mall and LL Bean and Eastern Mountain Sports, both at Mountain Farms Mall.

Canon Real Estate has the property listed for $2.5 million with a description that the “building features a spacious open floor plan that provides flexibility for merchandising, showroom layout, or reconfiguration to meet your business needs” and notes the “movie-style popcorn machine” that has been a staple of the Sam’s experience.

Bortosky said Hadley has been a good place to do business.

“It’s a fantastic location and I believe the road construction is finally almost complete, so I’d think that many types of businesses would find the spot ideal,” Borofsky said.