Retailer Gap, which operates two stores in the Levittown area, is going through a split.
The publicly-traded, California-based retailer that owns Banana Republic, Old Navy, Hill City, Athleta, and Intermix recently announced it will be spinning its Old Navy brand off. Gap will keep the Banana Republic, Athleta, Hill City, and Intermix brands.
“Following a comprehensive review by the Gap Inc. Board of Directors, it’s clear that Old Navy’s business model and customers have increasingly diverged from our specialty brands over time, and each company now requires a different strategy to thrive moving forward,” Robert Fisher, Gap ’s board chairman, said in a statement.
Gap has a store in the Newtown Shopping Center on West Road in Newtown Township, and an Athleta store in the former Gap Body store at the corner of South State Street and East Centre Avenue in Newtown Borough. There is also a nearby Gap store in the Oxford Valley Mall in Middletown and an Old Navy store in the Court at Oxford Valley shopping center in Falls Township. The company also owns Gap, Athleta, Banana Republic, and Old Navy stores in Doylestown, Newtown, Warminster, and Warrington.
USA Today reported that leadership for Gap announced during an earnings call last week that they plan to close about 230 stores. The first to close before the end of the year are ones having the most trouble. How many employees would be impacted and where the closing stores are located have not yet been announced.
Old Navy, the nationwide newspaper reported, outperformed Gap during the final three months of 2018.
On Monday, Business Insider reported that Gap intends to purchase high-end children’s’ clothing company Janie and Jack from bankrupt kid’s retailer Gymboree, which is expected to close its store in the Oxford Valley Mall. Janie and Jack does not operate any locations in Bucks County but nearby in Princeton, New Jersey, and at the King of Prussia Mall in Montgomery County.
