Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar.

Ahe Ala Moana McInerny store will close its doors forever Jan. 31, despite efforts by two store executives to save it.

The planned closing follows the sale of McInerny Ltd. by the Seibu Saison Group of Tokyo because it could not reach new lease agreement terms with the shopping center’s new management, The Center Companies.

The new owners of McInerny, GA-Pacific Group, will close the Ala Moana, King Street and Hilo stores. The McInerny outlets at Hilton Hawaiian Village, Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center and on Kauai will remain open.

The Ala Moana store has 210 employees; an additional 72 workers also stand to lose their jobs at the other outlets targeted for the closing.

The sale price was not disclosed.

Faced with word in early July that the Ala Moana McInerny store was to close in six months, two store executives flew to the parent company’s office in Japan in an attempt to buy it.

"We had so much commitment and dedication to the store and its new (contemporary) concept," said Pat Perreira, general merchandise manager. "When we learned that GA-Pacific was not interested in the Ala Moana store, we tried to save it."

Perreira said that she and Calvin Okazaki, vice president of administration-comptroller, tried to negotiate a deal to have employees acquire the company.

"We tried to propose something in Tokyo because we felt we had enough people in management" to support the move, she said. But because of time constraints combined with pressure from Seibu to determine the Ala Moana store’s future, the plan failed.

"The (Ala Moana Center) owners are disappointed," the center’s development director, Egan Nishimoto, said today. "We tried to work it out with McInerny. … The decision was not one that we were prepared for."

Nishimoto said McInerny’s lease was not renewed because McInerny did not accept an offer to scale down and relocate.

… "We have a unified plan worked out for the center which included McInerny. Unfortunately, the plan was not acceptable by them."