Toys R Us Closing 7 Illinois Stores

Toys R Us plans to close 182 stores nationwide — about 20 percent of its stores in the country, according to court documents filed in a Virginia bankruptcy court. The company plans to begin the mass closures early next month, according to documents filed late Tuesday. That process will last through April and includes seven stores in Illinois.

David Brandon, chairman and CEO of the toy retailer, said the brand is reinventing itself, and that requires some “tough decisions about our priorities and focus.

"The reinvention of our brands requires that we make tough decisions about our priorities and focus," Brandon said in a letter posted on the company's website late Tuesday.

A court still has to sign off on the mass closures.

The company, based in Wayne, New Jersey, has about 880 stores in the U.S. Existing stores will be combined into Toys R Us and Babies R Us stores.

The moves come four months after Toys R Us filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid declining sales and climbing debt.

Savvy shoppers can take advantage of going-out-of-business sales, which are slated to to begin in February. These Illinois stores are slated to close:

• 1610 Deerfield Rd., Highland Park
• 16 East Golf Rd., Schaumburg
• 295 Center Drive, Vernon Hills
• 5001 Lincoln Highway, Matteson
• 6420 W. Fullerton, Bricktown
• 7750 South Cicero Avenue, Burbank
• 5660 Touhy Avenue, Niles

While Illinois is losing multiple stores, other states were even harder hit. In California alone, 27 stores are planned to be shuttered. Florida has 11 locations due for closure, New Jersey has 12 and New York has 15.

You can find a complete list of locations here.

Photo credit: Leon Neal/Getty Images