GameStop unit wins 163 RadioShack stores, 5 in Tarrant County

At least five RadioShack locations in Tarrant County will be taken over by Grapevine-based GameStop, most likely as sites for its growing chain of Spring Mobile phone stores.

The company today won bankruptcy court approval for its bid to take over leases on 163 stores nationwide.

Locally, the stores include sites at Davis Towne Crossing in North Richland Hills; the Hurst SuperTarget shopping center at 1332 Precinct Line Road; South Towne Crossing at 130 NW John Jones Drive in Burleson; Hawks Creek shopping center off Texas 183 in west Fort Worth; and Montgomery Plaza off West Seventh Street in Fort Worth.

In Delaware, an attorney for GameStop said the video game retailer plans to make almost all of the soon-to-close RadioShack stores part of its Spring Mobile division, which sells AT&T phones and service. Eleven of the store would become GameStop stores and one would become Simply Mac, another electronics chain owned by GameStop.

In a filing, RadioShack said GameStop would pay $15,000 a store to take over the leases. GameStop acquired Spring Mobile in 2013 in a move to diversify beyond video games and has expanded the chain to more than 350 locations.

A pizza chain and a hair salon were also among successful bidders for RadioShack locations, according to the filings. Famous Famiglia Pizzeria placed the top bid for a store at 4020 Broadway in New York for $32,469, while Great Clips bid $20,836 for the lease on Greene Avenue, according to the filings.

Level 4 Yoga and BPER Electronic also had winning bids.

RadioShack, with about 4,000 locations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Feb. 5, with an agreement to sell about half its stores to a unit of hedge fund Standard General, its biggest shareholder. Some of those stores may operate under a co-branding deal with Sprint, the wireless carrier.

The company also plans to auction the RadioShack name, with a starting bid of $20 million. Those sales are set for an auction March 23.

The company has been holding clearance sales at about 1,700 locations it listed for possible closure and has already closed some of the stores.

Staff writer Sandra Baker contributed to this report, which includes material from Bloomberg News.

This story was originally published February 26, 2015 at 10:43 AM with the headline "GameStop unit wins 163 RadioShack stores, 5 in Tarrant County."