LL Flooring's Springfield store once again spared in whirlwind bankruptcy event

SBJ file

LL Flooring operates in Springfield at 3103 E. Chestnut Expressway.

The fate of the Springfield location of LL Flooring was in question in recent days amid turbulent bankruptcy proceedings that ultimately spared the Queen City store for the second time in as many months.

LL Flooring, which previously operated as Lumber Liquidators, this week announced on its restructuring website that it secured a buyer in a going-concern sale of the business that's part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings announced last month. At the end of last week, LL Flooring had planned to close all of its stores after officials said a buyer had not been found.

The latest announcement indicates F9 Investments penned an asset purchase agreement to buy 219 stores, inventory in those locations, a distribution center in Virginia, LL Flooring's intellectual property and other company assets. Closures are continuing at 211 stores, officials say. F9 Investments is owned by Lumber Liquidators founder Tom Sullivan.

Jean Cambareri, senior account executive at New York public relations firm Joele Frank, provided a list of the closing stores on behalf of LL Flooring.

The closure list, available here, does not include the Springfield store at 3103 E. Chestnut Expressway. The four Missouri locations slated for closure are in Chesterfield, Columbia, Joplin and Kansas City.

After filing for bankruptcy in August, LL Flooring initiated closures at 93 stores. Springfield was not among those, either, according to past reporting.