QUEENS — The Forest Hills Banana Republic store will get new life later this week as an outlet location, the company said.
The store at 71-18 Austin St. at 71st Road closed earlier this month and will reopen on Oct. 21 as a Banana Republic Factory Store, according to a sign posted in the window.
In an email to DNAinfo New York, the company said the conversion was made to better serve its customers in the area.
But some local shoppers were not pleased about the Banana Republic's transformation into a Factory Store and took to social media to express their disappointment.
@BananaRepublic Is it true that the Banana Republic in Forest Hills is going to become an Outlet store!? PLEASE say this isn't so!!
— MsMet_Susan (@MsMet_Susan) August 29, 2016
Earlier this year the company converted two other stores — in Peoria, Illinois, and in Tallahassee, Florida — into outlets, a spokeswoman for Banana Republic said.
The Forest Hills store has already been removed from the Banana Republic online store locator. Currently, the retailer has only two stores in Queens — at the Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst and on 82nd Street in Jackson Heights, according to the company's website.
In 2013, Ann Taylor also converted its store on Austin Street into an outlet location.
