After four years of business on Payne Road, Bob’s Discount – now known as Price Destroyers – closed its doors and emptied out its 20,000-square-foot building on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Earlier this summer the store voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has been in the process of closing its stores in Windham, Skowhegan, Lewiston and Scarborough. At one point there were 10 Bob’s stores in Maine. Today only the flagship Lewiston store and the one in Belfast remain open.

The store in Scarborough was scheduled to close after a going-out-of-business sale that started in mid-July was concluded in mid-September, according to court documents. The store planned to vacate the building by the end of September and asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to void the lease to avoid incurring more debt. The company was current on their rent, according to court documents.

However, the company decided to stop the sale at the end of August because business had declined as the sale continued. On Aug. 31, the Bob’s representatives were again in court, asking the judge to the reject the building’s lease a month early, on Sept. 1. The court granted the request.

The building is owned by Scarborough Realty Company. It is the only building the Augusta-based company owns in town. At this point the company is not sure about the future of the building or any new tenants.

“We’re sitting on hold like everyone else,” said Nita Faulkingham, an office manager with the company.

As for the future of the Bob’s stores and if the company will be reorganized after coming out of Chapter 11, owner Robert Dinan said he could not comment.

“I’m taking it one day at a time,” he said at his Scarborough store Tuesday afternoon.

Dinan would not comment on the retail environment or what had an effect on his store, but he did say that this last winter was “tough.”

Court documents indicate the store has between 50 to 99 creditors and an estimated debt between $1 million to $10 million.

The top three creditors are listed as Ther-a-pedic of Brocton, Mass., which is owned $186,000; Liberty Furniture of Atlanta, Ga.,, which is owed $96,000; and World Imports of Philadelphia, which is owed $82,000.

Bob’s Discount and Bob’s Discount Furniture, a Connecticut-based discount furniture retailer, had been having a court battle over the use of the Bob’s name.

At the beginning of the year a judge allowed both companies to keep their names in Maine, but Connecticut Bob’s asked a federal judge to stop the Maine Bob’s from using the name. The issue has not yet been settled.

A moving truck is parked outside of Price Destroyers in Scarborough Tuesday evening. The company filed for Chapter 11 earlier this summer.

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