J.C. Penney, 1305 East Broad Avenue, Suite 13, Rockingham: June 2020
Although brick-and-mortar retail stores have seen a decline in business since the advent of internet shopping, it seems that the pandemic has exacerbated that decline for J.C. Penney, which filed for bankruptcy protection near the end of spring. As part of that filing, J.C. Penney has closed 154 of its stores, including this one in Rockingham and apparently also the one in Florence. I suppose I'll get pictures of that one some other day, though I go to Rockingham more often than Florence, and those trips are far less frequent due to trying to stay home as much as possible during the pandemic.
I can probably count on one hand the times that I visited a J.C. Penney in the last decade...maybe even two decades. When I absolutely have to go to a department store (something I did as less often as possible prior to the pandemic anyway), I go to Belk, and usually, I can find what I need there. That said, this J.C. Penney will be a tough loss for this shopping center. According to the above-linked article from The Richmond Observer, the owner of the shopping center had found another tenant to take the place of J.C. Penney last year when apparently it was not certain if this J.C. Penney was going to stick around. Unfortunately, one year later, the owner may have a harder time of finding another tenant.