circuit city planning to return, will build new stores

One of the most popular big box tech-chains of the 1980s and 90s has announced plans to return to the retail world with a series of in-line outlets.

Launched in 1984, Circuit City evolved into a huge electronics-oriented department store network with nearly 600 stores nationally.

Those stores were primarily clustered in the Midwest and along the West coast, but were also up and running in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.

A series of business decisions, including the shedding of its appliance offerings beginning in 2002, led to Circuit City’s decline.

In 2008 the chain, with $2.3 billion in debts, declared bankruptcy.

Now the Richmond, Virginia-based company says it will soon announce its blueprint for bringing the Circuit City brand back, with an emphasis on a variety of computer and wireless phone offerings.

How many new stores the company will build, and what size the stores will be, remains to be seen.

Previous Circuit City outlets measured around 30,000 square feet, with some large as 40,000 square feet.

By Garry Boulard