DATE: Thursday, June 5, 1997                TAG: 9706050518

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   29 lines

KINETIX TO LEAVE HAMPTON ROADS

Kinetix, an activewear and footwear retailer, was raving about the area's growth when it opened a superstore in Chesapeake's Greenbrier community seven months ago.

Now, the fledgling chain, which sells everything from Reeboks to Rollerblades, is packing up.

On Wednesday, the company advertised its store closing sale, saying over 100,000 items ``MUST GO!''

Officials at the company's headquarters in Canton, Ohio, could not be reached. But a store manager said the 30,000-square-foot outlet, located in Greenbrier Market Center, never attracted big sales.

Customers, he said, balked at the store's original prices. Those prices were lowered after several months, but it might have been too late to counter customers' first impressions, he said.

The store will likely close by the fall.

Kinetix competes with a number of retailers. In the sneaker-retailing business, it faces Paramus, N.J.'s Sneaker Stadium Inc., which has a store in Virginia Beach, and Pelham, Ala.-based Just for Feet Inc.

Kinetix, founded by a former executive with Camelot Music, is much smaller. The privately owned retailer, which does not release its sales or earnings, has four stores in Chesapeake, Canton, and Charlotte and Cary, N.C.

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